Week Six - Its All Good Fun

Games design, well this seems like a really fuzzy topic now after reading some of the links, first of all I think I have concluded there is no definition of games design, there blog entry done…. If only.

Games design essentially means the whole game and all of it’s aspect (hmm maybe that’s the definition of games design), but it can be broken down into smaller chunks.

First of all we have gameplay, now gameplay many people say cannot be defined as it incorporates too much, from the way you move a character to physics engine to art style, well that seems like a good enough definition to me. Gameplay is the experience created by the designers that makes playing a game so damn good. But all the aspects have to come together well meaning all the people involved in making a game need to work together to create an overall experience in a game.

Two main factors in this is audio and visual stimulation, these are two things that are very important in games as the other sense’s can not really be created, well yet, such as smell, touch (although you could say the wii is addressing that) and taste. So it is important that the artists can create a visually stimulating game, and this does not mean amazing graphics. Now I’m going to use Zelda Ocarina Of Time as an example here as it will be easier.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Truly The Greatest Games Designer!

This game has an amazing gaming experience as anyone will tell you, you play the game and forget it’s a game and become the role and get really into the story, which brings me onto another point, Plot theme and background. The games story works so well, now this game is a very epic game (and I really do love the epic games), but games don’t necessarily need to be epic (arcade style games like racing games (burnout), side scrolling shooter (R-type)). But the story involves you in a game so someone down in the office has to design story lines, character story’s, scenes environments, list is probable endless, I think a good way of looking at it is it is like a film, if a film has no coherent plot line, badly thought up characters, and lack of detail, you will be left thinking what an awful film, same with games only you play the role.

But with all this there is also a growing demand for freedom in games, it all sparked off really with grand theft auto, although I’m sure there were a few games that had it before. But the ability to do what you want in the game lets you create your own experience, I’m sure anyone who has played GTA has spent hours just driving around aimlessly find new and exciting things to do.

Now as you can probable tell I’m making this up as I go along so I do apologise if it doesn’t read all that well, but don’t worry I am going somewhere with this, sort of.

Anyway back to some more random dribblings. Another thing I’ve got noted down to talk about it the growing in technology and how it’s implemented in games development. A lot of games developers are talking about how these days their physics engines are even more realistic that real physics, showing how when a character dies he falls at the exact speed he would in real life, this is all good and well, an in most case’s does add to the gaming experience (Wii sports has a very fancy physics engine), but without everything else in a game it can all fall apart and result in a very poor gaming experience. So yeah as I think I’ve said before its great and all technology is growing, but unless we can utilise it well and come up with good ideas, it will be become irrelevant, and a dot, chasing another dot, will continue to rule for all of time.

Wii Sports Tennis!

One last thing I’d like to address is two of the questions in the task “Do different genres require different design principles? What's important for you, when you play?” this isn’t set in stone, but my two favorite gaming styles are, the really big epic titles that encapsulate you and keep you wanting to just play and play, and arcade types of game where you can just pick it up and play for a while, try and beat high scores and keep you wanting to just play and play. So yes different genres of games do need different design principles, but it all comes down to you want to play the game and have a damn good time while doing so!(See I told you I was going somewhere with all of this)