Game Design

 

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For this task, I spent my time reading on "What is a Game". It talked about the various definitions a game has and that no definition is perfect because it will usually miss an aspect of what a game is. But from the article, we know a game consists of a list of things that define a game.

For a game to be a game, it must have the following: an Activity, Rules, Conflict,Goals and Decision making. A game is artificial, safe and outside reality of life. It is harmless and a game is only a game if it is played voluntarily. If you are forced to play something, it isn't for you. A game has to be interesting to you and you must want to play it. Games also need to have an uncertain outcome. Now at some point you do know what the outcome is when you've played it multiple times. 

Now relating back, we now know what the definition of a game is, in one form or another, and we know what it contains, some might argue about whether or not a game is a game. Factors such as Puzzles, RPG or a story based game. Whereas i would say most puzzles are games, I wouldn't say sudoku is a game, It's more of a brain teaser. RPG and in depth storylines can be considered games, given that they follow the set of factors it must contain. RPG's have conflict,rules, goals etc. EG: you are fighting a boss battle - that is a conflict. The goal is to win and the rule is you can't heal more than twice. This is a game. Games are also not necessarily console/pc games. They don't have to be digital. They can be board games or imaginary games or simply kicking a ball. We often forget there are games outside of our rooms on a computer or phone. Like Squid Game. They take an older generation, whoever is in debt for reasons, and make them play childhood games. Now in reality, you probably won't be shot if you lose.

One of the other things this article talked about was creating a game. It went through a series of steps to make a simple game. It doesn't have to be good and it probably won't if you don't go into deeper after creating the basics of your game, but it gets you started on something. One thing to take away from this and what i've read is: we are all so focused on trying to make something digital, we often forget that their is an audience for a physical game like UNO (even if there is a digital version). The ability to make a board game and make it stand out from other board games is just as important as trying to make a console game.