Game Elements
For this weeks reading, I read about game elements which dives into how to more clearly discuss games with others, and the various pieces of games that fit together to make it work.
I found reading What are the qualities of Games?, to be a very easy and digestible read as it keeps it's discussion short and simple. Learning about how to more critically analyse a game was something I heavily agreed with while reading with a little indifference when it comes to fun factor. While I do agree that looking at the game from the point of it's goals, trials, fairness, it's effects, and replayability is vital for critically analysing it, I find it important that fun is also taken into the critical analysis. Though I do understand fun is a subjective factor, I find that fun factors heavily into replayability as if the player enjoys playing the game, they are more likely to come back and play it again regardless of it being considered fair or challenging or any other factors.
I also thought that Formal Abstract Design Tools by Doug Church was a fun read as he pointed out something I never realised. At one point in his blog he talks about how a precise vocabulary is needed to truly discuss the faults of games, and then he goes on to show how we go on to do it in subtle ways we don't even realise. I never thought about I subconsciously dissect games while playing. While playing games such as Hollow Knight for example, while fighting bosses I never once blamed the game as I found the design of most bosses to be tight and fair, with each hit I received being a result of my own wrongdoing. Even while playing games like Marvel's Avengers, I critic it subconsciously by thinking things such as, the combat is long and repetitive without any individual flavour for characters to give them some fighting difference. Just learning about this small thing we do anytime we play a game was extremely interesting to me and I would recommend reading the blog to learn more deeply about writing games and the building of them.
This reading week was certainly a pleasure just being able to discover what kind of critical eye it takes when it comes to not only making games but playing and improving upon them. This change in perspective will defiantly come in use when making my Unity game.
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