ah teaches game design and development (Bits and bobs lecture)

Bits and bobs

Lecture outline

Models of game design and the components that make a game. Lecture slides will be made available on the day of the lecture.

In preparation for lecture...

Please close up any laptops, cellphones, Oculus Rifts, Palm Pilots and other 'beep-boop' devices.

MDA

One framing for thinking critically about games, this week we will introduce other frames for thinking about games.

Game loops

Put most simply, a game loop is the repeated pattern that players engage with and (ideally) remain engaged with the game. Another way of framing games. These involve:

• A challenge: What the player must complete.
• An action: What the player does to complete the challenge.
• A reward: What the player receives for completing the challenge.

Game loops

Short

We can have short game loops where we focus on individual actions the player can take and the reaction.

Game loops

Core

We have the 'core' game loop that is the repeated pattern that frequently defines the gameplay.

Game loops

Long

Longer loops that define our progression to what is frequently an end goal in the game.

Goals

The outcome(s) that the player is trying to achieve. These can be short-term or game-long goals.

Rules

Drawing from A Game Design Vocabulary (Anthropy & Clark, 2014) one way to think about rules is as 'verbs':

Verbs are the rules that allow the player to interact with the other rules in the game: "jump," "shoot," "fall," or "flap" in the case of Joust. Without verbs we have a simulation, not a collaborative story-telling system.

Feedback

Responses from the game that help the player understand the outcome of their actions.

Reward

Game incentives to promote continued play.

Questions?

Today's critical play

We will be playing 'The Stanley Parable' and pulling it apart in three 'phases':

1. What are the actions?
2. What is the challenge?
3. What is the reward?

Actions

Critical play (Part 1)

Questions to respond to:

• What actions can you take?
• What kinds of verbs would you use to describe those actions?
• How do you know the actions you can take?

Challenge

Critical play (Part 2)

Questions to respond to:

• What is the 'challenge'? What are you supposed to complete?
• What do you need to do to overcome this challenge?
• How do you feel about how the challenge is conveyed or introduced to you?

Reward

Critical play (Part 3)

Questions to respond to:

• What is the reward for completing a challenge?
• How do you feel about the reward?

Code tutorial

Today's tutorial covers the basics of setting variables to get started on our games. Our tutorials for the next couple weeks will cover creating an obstacle running game, piece by piece.

Project review

Let's check-in on where you are at. Can your game ideas:

• Be described in 1-2 sentences?
• Achievable given the constraints?