Game Design Workshop Responses

GDW Chapter 4: Working with Dramatic Elements

Fuller intrinsically explains the concept of Challenge and how challenge is not simply the basic idea of giving players a hard level to complete. Indeed, she speaks of satisfaction and the gauge of difficulty compared to that satisfaction. This is a very important concept to understand as many games and designers initially decide to create difficult levels just for the sake of creating difficult levels. This could also be on the other end of the spectrum where levels or games are too easy without much emotional challenge or investment. As such, designers must be able to gauge the appropriate level of challenge within their designs. Fuller’s mentioning of Csikszentmihalyi’s analysis of challenge also reinforces her dissection and discussion of the deeper elements of challenge and how it affects players emotionally. It’s also interesting to see how deeply Fuller analyzes the concept of challenge and every part that goes into it, such as with the Paradox of Control, a concept which is applied by multiple games. This is another crucial part of designing games as giving players too much control will undoubtedly reduce the challenge and play experience. 

Fuller wraps up the Challenge sections with effective questions that actually break down what the section discussed into simplified points for designers to consider. In this way it helps readers filter down what they have absorbed into points of reference.

GDW Chapter 8: Digital Prototyping

Beginning the chapter by clearing out what needs to go into prototypes and what doesn't is an important way of setting the idea in the reader’s head that prototyping never means focussing on all aspects of the game itself; it should only focus on issues and unclear elements that designers are unfamiliar with or do not yet know how these would work.

The different examples of prototypes that can be made for specific segments of a game, such as kinesthetics and aesthetics have the effect of giving readers, and especially aspiring game designers, what really can be made from prototypes and what actually goes into them. As prototyping is part of the early brainstorming experience, it is very easy to get lost and confused about how to start or what you should actually be prototyping. As such, Fuller with her numerous real world examples effectively gives insight and shines a light on how prototyping works and what it should involve at specific stages. 

The recommendation to prototype in another coding language is also an interesting suggestion, one that is certainly not immediately obvious. This can be useful for forcing designers to rework code more efficiently, but the problem is that using different coding languages so that code is not transferable from one to the other can be an inhibitor later on. Indeed, it could stall the production process as the programmer tries to figure out how the code would work in a different language. As such, this would only be viable if the coder is very familiar with both languages that they will decide to use. 

In terms of controls, the mention of less experienced and more experienced players and how they perceive controls and what complexity they desire is a very important part of the production process which is very often overlooked. Of course, it depends on what type of game and what audience the designer wishes that game to apply to as a game specifically for children or teenagers will not be accessible to adults.

The mentioning of each different view which games tend to be made in is a useful, albeit very universal, note to have when thinking about prototyping a game. Nevertheless, when it comes to view, it again depends on what type of game the designer wishes to make and most often than not the viewpoint will come with the game idea naturally. Furthermore, Fuller does not mention how viewpoints should be prototyped or what role they should play in the prototyping model. 

The Level Editor segment presents an interesting idea in which level design can be prototyped quickly and effectively without much commitment to making drastic changes to your game. 

Lastly, Elan Lee’s take on using the psychology experiment of offering a random reward system every time an event occurred into games is another intriguing and important concept, one that actually fuels gambling. Indeed, the element of random chance serves to turn a more mundane game into one that keeps pushing players to play more until they receive their reward.

GDW Chapter 11: Fun and Accessibility, Is Your Game Fun?

Comparing the element of fun in games versus in movies is an interesting way to introduce the idea of fun; that games are entirely dependent on participation by players to determine whether they are fun or not while movies are non-interactive and continue to play themselves even if there is no active participation.

Asking playtesters to talk about the goals they are trying to achieve in your game sounds like an intriguing way of testing if your game achieved its primary goal of actually letting the players know what its predetermined goals are. Indeed, it would make for a great way to see right from the start if your game communicates well.

In general, Fuller lists the different things to look out for in playtests and what to ask of them quite well, but essentially at the end of the day the game designer needs to be aware and very attentive of everything the playtesters do, say or how they simply react to the game. In this way the designers can note down what works well with the game and what does not, if it has the intended effect or not and especially if the game itself is fun. As such, all of Fuller’s elements within playtesting for fun gravitate towards paying attention to the playtester and their reactions.

Fuller also notes a very important element of playtests: do the decisions a player is making feel arbitrary to them? This is an important thing to watch out for because, from personal experience, it can single handedly destroy the intended game experience the designer wanted the player to have and will just lead to the designer attempting to artificially explain and implement their wanted experience to the playtester, effectively removing the fun and attachment from the game itself.

Furthermore, Fuller lists out the different elements that serve to make a game fun effectively and informatively. Designers may think that this is a simplistic view of looking at the elements that make up fun, such as with good graphics leading to a game being more fun being an obvious thing, but to effectively implement all of these things without placing more emphasis on one over the other is the true challenge and what many games lack. Indeed, it appears to be fun and cool when a game has top of the line graphics and a rich surround sound, but if the story/premise and the gameplay itself is lacking or too complex, then most players will decide to look past the ‘fun’ graphics and put the game away due to its lack of depth and immersion.