Game Elements

Game Elements

Before each reading task I like to read and make notes about all the material to get a full understanding of what I will be blogging about. My understanding from this weeks reading are many different aspects behind the initial creation of a game. These aspects include:

Game Qualities:

Game qualities include all the elements that help make up the game for example:

  • Players
  • Objectives
  • Theme
  • Resources
  • Conflict
  • Outcomes
As a designer there is a lot of work involved to create the game and these elements take a lot of time in terms of experimenting and developing the concepts.

Critical Analysis:
When reading the first paper they explained what 'critical analysis' is and before hand I wouldn't really have of known why this would have been relevant in terms of 'Game Design'. 
My opinion of critical analysis is that it is quite helpful for a designer as receiving constructive criticism can only benefit their work and improve it extremely.
When analysing a game you must follow certain steps which are basically questions you must answer as a designer in order to have your game be usable to the players.

These questions are :

  • Describe how the games elements work - you must know how the game components work on their own and also collectively.
  • What is the play of the game like? - How do you play the game in its simplest form.
  • What challenges do the players face?
  • Is there multiple paths to victory?
  • What is the player audience - who is this game made for / what type of people / what age can play / is it age appropriate?

Critical Analysing is looking at all elements of a game and evaluation whether they work well or not.

Game Design:
When reading the second article I found it extremely long and complicated so I had to make notes so I could break it down to understand.

What I have learned about 'Game Design' is that it is a 'process' that is constantly developing. Brainstorming seems to be the key when making a game, hashing out ideas helps big time to get a full understanding behind each part of the game. 
Also prototypes are very beneficial as they help the designer get a grasp on what is viewed by the player and how they want the game to be portrayed as.  By making a prototype is gives the designer tips on what works and what doesn't, it allows them to explore all aspects of the game.

After watching the video I learned that designers are constantly trying to create the best version of a product that they can. They try a lot of different tricks to see whether what they have come up with can be their best overall outcome , which I think is great as they only want to come up with the best product that they can.

Below I have link a Youtube video about game design and what is it?, I found it quite helpful when researching this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQvWMdWhFCc

Below I have linked 3 blogs/articles about game design have a look I think there great! :

link for an interesting blog about game design.
Another link for an interesting article I found on 'game design'
Thanks for reading 

- Mia

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