Game Elements

In this week reading we are learning how to "dissect and analyse a game" by reading about its component parts and how they all fit together. The First Paper "What are the qualities of a game" discusses the atomic elements of a game they parts they listed where: 

• Players
• Objectives/Goals
• Rules
• Resources
• Game-state 
• Information
• Sequencing 
• Player Interaction
• Theme
• Game as System 

  

  Game Clipart
  

The article discusses how you can break a game down into these parts to study individually. The article then goes on to discuss critical analysis not as a negative thing but as a useful tool for discussing and comparing games, to find out why you like a game and how to use that in a new game design. 

I really enjoyed the video (here) in this weeks reading task as I am much more of a visual learner and it helped watch the two game designers break down the game idea process into simple steps that you wouldn't even realise where so important. The demonstrated a few of the steps they take to visualise the playing on the game. They started with simply just making the game from paper, they said this was important to get the game into the prototype stage as soon as possible. They then made their way up to playing ping pong in different ways as the game they where developing was a ping pong style.