PLAY & GAME - PREMASTER
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Game development:
2D designer + 3D designer + Game designer + Sound designer + Producer + Programmer +
Writer + UI/UX designer
UI/UX (User interface/User experience) designers plan and design the interface that stands
between the player and the game. Skilled at determining the importance of information and
how to consolidate it for the player to interact with the game easily, UI/UX designers need to
be well-versed in the craft of the game design, and may be responsible for anything from
providing solely technical documentation and wireframe designs on how a game’s interface
works, to actually creating the graphics required for the interface. Other times, the graphic
creation may be given from the designer to a specific UI/US Artist.
Important concepts: gamification, serious games, and playfulness.
1. What is a game?
Part of, and expression of culture, art, simulation, community, design material…
Juul’s classic model of games:
Various definitions, various properties of games:
- Rules
- Outcome
- Goals (and conflicts), if the game was easy and you did not have goals it would not be
interesting.
- Interaction with other players
- Different from “normal” life (not productive, artificial conflicts)
- Not work, voluntary, relaxation
- Social, there is a community within the game, even if it is a single player game.
- Fiction, the story of the game.
The game definition proposed finally has 6 points: 1) Rules: Games are rule-based. 2) Variable,
quantifiable outcome: Games have variable, quantifiable outcomes. 3) Value assigned to
possible outcomes: That the different potential outcomes of the game are assigned different
values, some being positive, some being negative. 4) Player effort: That the player invests
effort in order to influence the outcome. (I.e. games are challenging.) 5) Players attached to
outcome: That the players are attached to the outcomes of the game in the sense that a player
will be the winner and "happy" if a positive outcome happens, and loser and "unhappy" if a
negative outcome happens. 6) Negotiable consequences: The same game [set of rules] can be
played with or without real-life consequences.
,The definition proposed here describes games mainly as real rule-based systems that players
interact with in the real world.
Games are autotelic: you play for the sake of playing, not to reach external goals. This is not
always like that, as there are some people who work playing games, so it finishes being
voluntary.
1.2. Four types of games (Caillois)
1. Agon (competition): how good you are, determines whether you reach the goals.
2. Alea (chance): luck and randomness determines (partly) whether you reach the goals.
3. Mimicry (imitation): you can take on the role of something/someone else.
4. Ilinx (vertigo): emphasis on movement/speed, the goal being to get an enjoyable feeling.
1.3. Games vs. Play
,Games can be played with a ludus and a paidia attitude. Play can also take place without a
game.
Game - rules, structured (you have to follow the rules and the story)
Play - is the attitude you take when you play a game not following the rules and the story. E.g.,
when you play GTA you can jump off a bridge just to see what happens, but this is not part of
the game.
2. Studying games: perspectives.
- Game: structure and technology, how these determine the player experience
- Players: how games are used in the real world, effects on players
- Culture: how culture affects games and vice versa, subcultures related to games
2.1. Group of researchers:
- Situationalists: focus on the players and culture (context and variation, “real” experiences)
→ ESSAY
- Formalist: focus on the games themselves or related philosophical questions (film studies) –
categorization, reasoning. Further subgroups within formalists:
o Narratology: games as a way to tell stories.
o Ludology: games as a collection of rules (gameplay)
, Lecture 2 - Game elements and the MDA framework (Chapter 2)
1. Rules, goals, challenges
1.1. Rules
Define the space (where the game actually takes place), objects, passage of time (time is very
malleable: a game can unfold in an unreal period of time, for example during 200 years, or in
real time), consequences of actions (sometimes there are morality consequences).
These definitions facilitate the goals, progress/development, challenge.
Type of rules:
- Operational rules (in the GDD): required to be able to play the game
- Basic, “constitutive” rules: underlying, often logical/mathematical rules on which the
operational rules are based.
- Rules of conduct: e.g., cheating, sportsmanship, often unwritten
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Game development:
2D designer + 3D designer + Game designer + Sound designer + Producer + Programmer +
Writer + UI/UX designer
UI/UX (User interface/User experience) designers plan and design the interface that stands
between the player and the game. Skilled at determining the importance of information and
how to consolidate it for the player to interact with the game easily, UI/UX designers need to
be well-versed in the craft of the game design, and may be responsible for anything from
providing solely technical documentation and wireframe designs on how a game’s interface
works, to actually creating the graphics required for the interface. Other times, the graphic
creation may be given from the designer to a specific UI/US Artist.
Important concepts: gamification, serious games, and playfulness.
1. What is a game?
Part of, and expression of culture, art, simulation, community, design material…
Juul’s classic model of games:
Various definitions, various properties of games:
- Rules
- Outcome
- Goals (and conflicts), if the game was easy and you did not have goals it would not be
interesting.
- Interaction with other players
- Different from “normal” life (not productive, artificial conflicts)
- Not work, voluntary, relaxation
- Social, there is a community within the game, even if it is a single player game.
- Fiction, the story of the game.
The game definition proposed finally has 6 points: 1) Rules: Games are rule-based. 2) Variable,
quantifiable outcome: Games have variable, quantifiable outcomes. 3) Value assigned to
possible outcomes: That the different potential outcomes of the game are assigned different
values, some being positive, some being negative. 4) Player effort: That the player invests
effort in order to influence the outcome. (I.e. games are challenging.) 5) Players attached to
outcome: That the players are attached to the outcomes of the game in the sense that a player
will be the winner and "happy" if a positive outcome happens, and loser and "unhappy" if a
negative outcome happens. 6) Negotiable consequences: The same game [set of rules] can be
played with or without real-life consequences.
,The definition proposed here describes games mainly as real rule-based systems that players
interact with in the real world.
Games are autotelic: you play for the sake of playing, not to reach external goals. This is not
always like that, as there are some people who work playing games, so it finishes being
voluntary.
1.2. Four types of games (Caillois)
1. Agon (competition): how good you are, determines whether you reach the goals.
2. Alea (chance): luck and randomness determines (partly) whether you reach the goals.
3. Mimicry (imitation): you can take on the role of something/someone else.
4. Ilinx (vertigo): emphasis on movement/speed, the goal being to get an enjoyable feeling.
1.3. Games vs. Play
,Games can be played with a ludus and a paidia attitude. Play can also take place without a
game.
Game - rules, structured (you have to follow the rules and the story)
Play - is the attitude you take when you play a game not following the rules and the story. E.g.,
when you play GTA you can jump off a bridge just to see what happens, but this is not part of
the game.
2. Studying games: perspectives.
- Game: structure and technology, how these determine the player experience
- Players: how games are used in the real world, effects on players
- Culture: how culture affects games and vice versa, subcultures related to games
2.1. Group of researchers:
- Situationalists: focus on the players and culture (context and variation, “real” experiences)
→ ESSAY
- Formalist: focus on the games themselves or related philosophical questions (film studies) –
categorization, reasoning. Further subgroups within formalists:
o Narratology: games as a way to tell stories.
o Ludology: games as a collection of rules (gameplay)
, Lecture 2 - Game elements and the MDA framework (Chapter 2)
1. Rules, goals, challenges
1.1. Rules
Define the space (where the game actually takes place), objects, passage of time (time is very
malleable: a game can unfold in an unreal period of time, for example during 200 years, or in
real time), consequences of actions (sometimes there are morality consequences).
These definitions facilitate the goals, progress/development, challenge.
Type of rules:
- Operational rules (in the GDD): required to be able to play the game
- Basic, “constitutive” rules: underlying, often logical/mathematical rules on which the
operational rules are based.
- Rules of conduct: e.g., cheating, sportsmanship, often unwritten
