Test Flashcards
What is formalism?
- Interested in games as structures, rules
- Large debate between ‘narratologists’ and ‘ludologists’
What is narratology?
Study of games as stories (its a formalist approach)
What is ludology
Study of games as systems (its a formalist approach)
What is situationism?
- studies players or the culture
- interested in gameplay , specific situations, cultural context
- not interested in general patterns or rules
What is the Problem of Games: Family resemblance?
By ludwig wittgenstein 1953, the venn diagram thing thats like Game A and Game C might both be like Game B but Game A isn’t like Game C
The Magic Circle?
By Johan Huizinga - Homo Ludens:
A game is:
- different from ordinary life
- separated in space and time
- non-serious
- voluntary, there’s freedom
- creates order and has rules
- is connected with no material interests
Who said there’s no magic circle?
Mia Consalvo
- gameplay isn’t isolated
- its not jsut rule-based, it takes time
- affects mood
- contexts, move tie-ins
What are Roger Callois 4 categories of games?
Agon (competition), Alea (chance), Mimicry (imitiation), Ilinx (vertigo)
What is the paidia, ludus spectrtum?
Paidia = loose rules —> Ludus = strict rules
What is meta-communication? (LI: Gregory Benson)
Communication about communication. Saying I’m going to kill you in game doesn’t mean you’re going to do it in real life.
LI: Marshall McLuhan
From Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) - “Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture” - Games release tension, catharsis
LI: Brian Sutton Smith
From The Message ‘This is Play’ (1956) - Games reflect the evolution of a society - “A game is what we decide it should be”
LI: George Herbert Mead
From Mind,Self and Society (1934) - Games as role-training, development of self. A person’s personality develops through social interaction.
LI: Henry Jenkins
From Games, the New lively Art (2005) = Games as Art. Game designers artsits of the century. Games are bout the player influence, new experience. Games are unique, should be designed and studied as unique.
Formal definition vs Pragmatic Definition of Games
Formal (university) defn - defining games in their own right. Meant to be insightful on their own, philosophical. Meant to draw a line btwn what is and what is not a game.
Pragmatic (designers) defn - tool for action and not philosophically bulletproof.
What is a loose defn of a game?
- Desirable goal
- Rules
- Outcome
- Reasonable effort from player
Sid Meier’s defn of a game
“A game is a series of interesting choices”
Game Mechanic vs Gameplay vs Game States
Mechanic - rules + code + structure
Play - needs the player, act of doing
State - all the variables + current values
MDA model
Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics:
Gameplay is a combo of mechanics which produces a game state (dynamics) which is perceived by a player (aesthetics)
Rules –> system –> Fun
Mechanics –> Dynamics –> Aesthetics
What is the core, hook and fantasy?
Core - genre
Hook - what’s drawing you in, why this game over another?
Fantasy - should boost the hook and the core, the story.
What are Front End Design considerations
- Title screen
- know exactly what you loaded into
- reminding you about what the game is
- put an image of your game
- if it isn’t good, the first impression isn’t good
- make the buttons look like they can be clicked
- if gameplay involves mouse, title screen should, if not, then it shouldn’t
- figuring out how to use the menu shouldn’t be the first puzzle
- don’t put the tutorial here, it should be integrated with the game
- make the defaults make sense
UI and UX considerations
- Make sure your credits and end screen can’t be clicked through
- If you’re holding down a button, make sure the next thing won’t be clicked through
- Make sure two buttons aren’t the same e.g. attack and dialogue
- if you want to use a key to advance put a delay or freeze into the game
HUD considerations
- non-interactive
- how you want to pressure the player, how important the information is in the decision making
- two rules: the player should have the information they need to make a choice in the game state (e.g you don’t need to see who is in 7th place only the top 3), how you should display it and in what detail to make the player behave in certain ways (e.g numeric health vs heart health vs bar display)
- middle section is most important part of the HUD display
- info needs to be relevant
What are some principles of design?
- pattern and consistency
- contrasting things (no red text in bright blue)
- emphasis (fading or darkening stuff that isn’t in the playable space
- balance
- proportion
- harmony
- rhythm and movement
Text
BIG TEXT IS THE ENEMY. If text is necessary, how short can you make it?
Visual clarity
- damage indictors (flashing red, noise, etc) are gonna make the player wanna kill stuff more
Genre conventions
- don’t punish players ith cinematics, use them as rewards
- if you die, does something happen to the inventory
- what buttons would be helpful to have quickly accessible?
- having buttons flash up for the action and how to do it is useful
General game considerations?
Who is this marketed towards? What do I want the player to take away from the game? What story is not being told that should be?
William HiginBotem
Tennis for two 1958
Spacewar!
MIT 1962 Steve Russel
- the computer came preloaded on it
- first proper game
- modding and stuff, code was readily available
- put in the student union building and anyone could play it
- first thing we do is shoot at eachother
Computer Space
1971 - Nolan Bushnell (maker of Atari) rips off Spacewar! and puts it into bars. First arcade game and a big failure.
1st Gen consoles
Brown Box (1967) included Pong, chackers, shooter, etc
Tried to sell it and people didn’t want it but Magnavox bought it eventually
Magnavox Odyssey
It’s what the brown box became, console in 1972, barely any graphics, the acetate one, first proper released console. it shut down in 1975
Pong
Bushnell ripped off Pong and put it in arcades, which was super popular, machines were breaking because too many coins
Night Driver
Still a pong style paddle game but looked like driving
Atari
Nolan Bushnell
- Made home pong unit in 1974, sold 150000 units over a 2 month period, Immediately got sued by Magnavox and home pong killed Odyssey
Who made breakout?
Steve Jobs
First crash of 1977?
Everyone flooded the market with pong clones. Market died when the fad died.
Agile vs Waterfall?
Agile - circle one
Waterfall - one that looks like a waterfall
Requirements –> design –> development –> testing –> maintenance
Agile
Scrum
Pipelines
Take 1 thing at a time. Don’t do all your art at once. Put 1 thing in and test it. - vertical slice
3 main stages of production
- Pre-production
- Initiation (concept design, foundation)
- ideation, managing scope is critial to keeping manageable pipelines + quality
- goals and stretch goals - Production
- structure, formal details, refinement
- prototyping
- proof of concept
- alpha
- beta - Testing
- qualitative feedback (interviews, surveys, oberservations)
- quantitive feedback (gameplay analytics)
X-video
like cinematic game video experience you want players to have
?What is whale-ing?
“whales” are people that love your games so much
Narratives
Succession of events:
- chronological order of events (story)
- verbal or visual representation (text)
- act of writing or telling (narration)
Game space
The setting for the gaemplay: the entire space, world, universe presetnted by the games narrative. Uses things like cutscenes, invisible walls and scripted events
Cutscenes
-introduce tensions
-advance plot
-compensate for plot holes
-cinematic aesthetics
-tactical information
NPCs
Stage characters: background sprites, non-interactable npcs
Functional chaarcters: enemies, unnamed supporters
Cast characters: quest givers, special enemies
Player characters
Avatar characters (not a lot of characterisation)
Actor characters (have a lot of characterisation, backstory, etc)
Role playing characters (have goals, motivation, but can emerge from the player)
Iconic characters (like Mario, not packed witha huge amount but culturally iconic)
12 character archetypes:
The Innocent, happiness, punishment
The Orphan, belonging, exclusion
The Hero, change world, weakness
The Caregiver, help others, selfishness
The Explorer, freedom, entrapment
The Rebel, revolution, no power
The Lover, connection, isolation
The Creator, realise vision, mediocrity
The Jester, levity + fun, boredom
The Sage, knowledge, deception
The Magician, alter reality, unintended results
The Ruler, prosperity, overthrown
Games need to have
Goals, rules and choices
Game economy
- sources (how you get it), sinks (where you spend it)
- “money” anything that can be traded. Examples: time, ZP, stamina (mobile games), potions, gold, crystals
- more time spent should give a better reward
Considerations for game economy
- Fairness, challenge, choices, chance, co-operation, time, rewards, punishment, freedom
- An economy can be limited (eg Poker - theres only 4 of each card)
- Game mechanics (health, score time)
- economy of exchange (hit boxes, matching with other characters in fighting games)
Game balance
-No style of play is superior to the others
-can break it down into player choice (boring/no engagement <-> too hard/broken economy) and gameplay elements (too easy/no economy <-> overwhelming/too much junk)
Transitive relationship
Royalty better than merchant, merhcant better than peasant
Royalty, merchant and peasant all exchanged for gold so gold is transitive
Intransitive relationsip
Rock-paper-scissors
Making a player do something again (motivation)
Continuous reinforcement (loot)
Fixed ratio (every time)
Variable ratio (not every time, x% chance, gambling)
Fixed interval (daily, weekly, monthly, habit formation)
Variable interval (every x seconds has a y% chance)
Other motivating factors to consider: ultimate challenges for ultimate rewards, risk vs reward needs to balacne
Intrinsic vs extrinsic
Internal vs external motivation.
External motivation –> approval seeking –> understanding –> Internalisation
Game Feel
Particles:
- calls attention to stuff
Feedback
- delays, micro delay a frame, give the player a moment to see what happened
- hit indicators, block indicators, flashing white
- being clear what mechanics are doing
Screen shake
- not too much
- reserve for effect
- can kill precision gameplay
Animations
- if its alive, it should move
- they don’t need to be gameplay
Responsive audio
- music not too loud
- if it moves it should make a sound
- sound = emotional cues, emotional context
- screen movement
- flashing lights
- first 5 minutes
- first/final frame
Active Media Model
The effects media has on us.
Rooted in behaviourism, psychology etc.
Like a hypeodermic needle, communication is directly received.
Theories and methods:
- catharisis (playing games gets your rage out and makes you better)
- cultivation theory (you absorb and become everything that yuo watch)
- social learning theory (if you like a celebrity you will like the thigns they have)
- general arousal theory (maintainig feelings after gameplay)
-cognitive neo-assassination model of aggression (like working out muscles, you work out your brain. more aggressive media –> more aggressive person)
- General aggression model (stimulus –> response)
Mean World Syndrome, Third Person effect
Critiques:
- lab vs everyday situations (stressors vs physical issues)
- causality vs correlation
- define aggression
- games are varied
- statistical problems
Longitudinal studies (happen over time) vs meta-studies (take a bunch of studies and data and make a point)
Active User Model
What users do and how they interpret media texts
Based on anthropology, cultural, media, literarary studies
Qualitative stuff. Focuses on the users and how they use media.
Theories and methods:
- literary theories of response and reception (how people are recevinign narrative)
- Play as meta-communication (saying im gonna kill you doesnt mean in real lfie)
- childhood frame of reference (kids can’t be understood by adults)
- catalyst model (when you’re predisposed to certain tendancies and then the media can be a catalyst)
Critiques
- perceived as abstract, lacking scientific rigor
- limited scope of results, specificy
- extremely hard to replicate, test a studies validity and conclusions
- understood as more subjective
14 forms of fun? (I can only find 8)
Sensation
Fantasy
Narrative
Challenge
Fellowship
Discovery
Expression
Submission
What is Fitts Law?
Fitts’ Law is a psychological model that predicts the time it takes to move to a target area, such as clicking on a button in a user interface or aiming in a video game. It describes the relationship between the distance to the target, the size of the target, and the speed and accuracy of the movement.
What are the 5 game elements we analyze?
Game, players, culture, ontology, metrics
whats the difference between deterministic vs probabilistic game mechanics
The difference between deterministic and probabilistic game mechanics lies in how outcomes are determined—whether they are predictable (deterministic) or influenced by chance (probabilistic).
Deterministic Game Mechanics
Definition: The outcome of an action or event is fully predictable, based on the input and rules. There is no randomness or uncertainty involved.
Characteristics:
Predictability: Players can calculate the exact result of their actions if they understand the rules.
Skill-Oriented: Success depends primarily on player skill, strategy, or logic rather than luck.
No Randomness: All variables are fixed, and players can analyze outcomes with certainty.
Examples:
Chess: Each move has a fixed result determined by the game’s rules, with no randomness involved.
Tic-Tac-Toe: The outcome depends solely on player decisions.
Puzzle Games: Solving a Rubik’s Cube or Sudoku relies entirely on logical thinking and skill.
Pros:
Emphasizes skill and strategy.
Allows players to plan moves in advance.
Suitable for competitive play where fairness is crucial.
Cons:
Can feel repetitive or overly rigid.
New players may feel disadvantaged against more experienced ones.
Probabilistic Game Mechanics
Definition: The outcome of an action or event is influenced by chance or randomness, often governed by probabilities.
Characteristics:
Uncertainty: Players can estimate likely outcomes but cannot predict them with absolute certainty.
Luck Involvement: Adds an element of unpredictability to gameplay, which can make games more dynamic and exciting.
Random Elements: Typically involves dice rolls, card draws, or procedural generation.
Examples:
Monopoly: Rolling dice determines how far you move, adding an element of chance to each turn.
Pokémon: The likelihood of landing a critical hit or encountering a rare Pokémon is based on probabilities.
Roguelike Games: Levels or enemy spawns are procedurally generated, creating different outcomes every time.
Loot Systems: Games like Diablo or Fortnite use probabilistic mechanics for item drops.
Pros:
Adds variety and replayability.
Levels the playing field by giving less-skilled players a chance to succeed.
Creates suspense and surprise in gameplay.
Cons:
Can feel unfair if randomness dominates outcomes.
Players may feel less in control.
Whats the difference between GUI and HUD?
Graphical User Interface and Heads Up Display, GUI is interactive and HUD is just information
What are the steps for ideation?
Start with a theme
1. Get inspired, brainstorm, figure out basic building blocks, no filtering, nouns and verbs
2. combine and cut ideas, whats the game gonna be, new thing that sets it apart, what does it look like, what genre, refine and assess
3. communicate and prototype
4. development cycle, plan, implement, test, make a checklist of bugs and fix them
What are aesthetics?
Everythign experienced by the player
What is the Nash Equilibrium
when you can’t change strategy because no one else will
Diffrent perspectives?
First person, 3rd person and implied
Jesper Juul and emergence?
players figuring shit out by themselves
What are ARGs?
Alternate Reality Games (mixing real life with games)
Whats a heros journey/monomyth
The Ordinary World: The hero begins in their normal, everyday environment, unaware of the adventure to come. This stage establishes the hero’s life before the call to adventure.
The Call to Adventure: The hero is faced with a challenge, opportunity, or invitation to leave their ordinary world and embark on a journey. This often involves a quest, problem to solve, or conflict to address.
Refusal of the Call: Initially, the hero may be reluctant or refuse the call due to fear, doubt, or insecurity. This hesitation is common, but it does not prevent the hero from eventually accepting the challenge.
Meeting the Mentor: The hero encounters a wise figure who provides guidance, tools, or advice to help them on their journey. The mentor plays a crucial role in preparing the hero for the challenges ahead.
Crossing the Threshold: The hero fully commits to the adventure and crosses into the unknown world, leaving behind their ordinary life. This marks the point of no return, where the hero can no longer go back to the way things were.
Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero faces a series of tests, challenges, and obstacles. Along the way, they meet allies who assist them and enemies who try to hinder their progress. These experiences help the hero grow.
Approach to the Inmost Cave: The hero prepares for a major challenge or confrontation. This often involves entering a dangerous or symbolic space that represents their greatest fear or challenge.
The Ordeal: The hero faces their most significant trial, often involving life or death stakes. This is a moment of great crisis or conflict that forces the hero to confront their deepest fears or limitations.
Reward (Seizing the Sword): After overcoming the ordeal, the hero earns a reward, which may be a physical object, knowledge, or personal growth. This reward represents the culmination of their trials.
The Road Back: The hero begins the journey back to the ordinary world, but the challenges are not over. This stage often involves further tests or a final confrontation before returning home.
Resurrection: The hero undergoes a final, transformative challenge that tests their growth and development. This often involves a figurative or literal “rebirth” where the hero is changed or transformed by the journey.
Return with the Elixir: The hero returns to the ordinary world, bringing back the knowledge, wisdom, or power gained on the journey. They may use this newfound strength to improve their world or help others.
Where do games sit in the skyscraper model?
In the elevator
What is procedural rhetoric?
game mechanics to make a statement
What is a cybertext
A text that the player influences the narrative
Behaviourism
Positive reinforcement (reward) and negative reinforcement (removing negative stimulus) Positibe punishment (adding somethign negative to discourage behaviour) Negative punishment (removing something good to discourage behaviour). Linked with the reinforcement schedueles
Game balance
Skill vs luck
challenge and difficulty
power dynamics
resource management
reward systems
What is gamification
Applying game-like methods to real life things like recycling
What is othering
The us vs them mentality
What is mean world syndrome
Negative world view
Whats the third person effect
it happens to them not me
