Multimedia Development 1

  The first reading called 'what every game developer needs to know about story' talks about what a story is and how to approach stories in games. Link to reading A story in games is similar to a story in movies but in different forms. The first attempts to make stories into movies were a failed attempt. The common misconceptions or mistakes that have been made in games are: Story is dialog Story doesn't matter Some people think that the story doesn't matter but that is not true, to get on the level that movies have reached, the same story problems have to be figured out for games just like the movies. If we develop games into the advanced story form that movies have become, we have to start learning everything that movies had to learn. McKee pointed out that the real substance of the story is conflict. Also, what a character eats, wears and drives is important but shallow, whats really important is what he chooses to do and what defines his character. A good story will...

Looking back at all the work I have done so far for this module, I thought the reading tasks would be much harder when I first found out about them, but each week as I read all the papers I found them to be quite informative and writing a blog about each reading task became easier as time passed. At first, the biggest difficulty I had was figuring out how to summarize each reading and what information would be most important to include in my blog, but with time I found that easier to do.  The writing assignments are not too bad for me but I find that sometimes it can be hard to write a blog after doing each task as some take me a few hours and once I'm done with the task I find myself to be tired and dreading to have to write a blog after, I have disciplined myself to write a blog each time. My favourite reading so far has been about the growth mindset as its something that I think is useful to learn, especially students. It was a good way to start the module by trying to implement...

  Image Source In the first reading, we learn about gamification design and can you have fun while designing games. The image above is the visualization of the gamification design process by Andrzej Marczewski. Andrzej says 'Fun is a byproduct of a good design. It is also not essential for a good gamified system'. Fun can only be the desired outcome and not a 'building block' in the design itself. The definition of fun in the context of games and gamification is defined as 'pleasurable engagement' Link to the first reading: Gamification Design The second paper is an academic piece, which is called 'Putting the fun factor into gaming: The influence of social contexts on experiences of playing videogames'. This study examines the influence of social processes in gameplay and different gaming contexts on the experience of individual and group flow when engaged in the activity. Flow is characterized as the positive subjective state an individual experiences ...

  Image Sour ce This week, the first reading covers adding learning and fun into applications. While making an app/game you should focus on making sure that learning to use the app/game is not difficult, the app should contain skills that most people already know, don't force them to learn anything new or they might be discouraged to use your app/game. Using pre-existing skills in an app or game means you can start using the app/game quickly and its not that deep. Here are some hacks for adding features to your app without turning users off: Segmenting features by user skill level, Layering less commonly used or expert features so they are out of the way, Creating a unifying UI metaphor that lets users understand new tools more easily. Elegant information architecture and clean visual design. Most games teach us new skills while also being fun because they use something called exploratory learning. You are given a goal You aren't told how to reach it  You can fail ( and be tol...

In this blog, I will be covering game design documents and what they are. A GDD is a highly descriptive design document of the design for a video game. A game design document is both created and edited by the development team and it is used in the video game industry to organize efforts within a development team. The purpose of a game design document: Memory aid . Many important design decisions define how a game works in detail. Usually, the development of a game takes a significant amount of time, so you are likely to forget some early design decisions if they are not written down. Designers use design documents to record their design decisions as they are made. This way, you do not have to solve the same design problem multiple times                        Communication tool . Since you are often working with many people on a team to develop games, you will need an effective way of communicating design decisions. The communi...

  Link to image MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research MDA is a formal approach to understanding games which tries to bridge the gap between game design and development, game criticism and technical game research. MDA breaks down the consumption of games by breaking them down into their distinct components: Rules System Fun and setting up their design counterparts: Mechanics  Dynamics Aesthetics MDA  supports a formal, interactive attitude to design and tuning. it allows designers to think explicitly about particular design goals and to predict how changes will impact each aspect of the framework and the resulting design Design, Dynamics, Experience An Advancement of the MDA framework for Game Design In 2015 and 2016 the MDA was deeply analyzed, criticized and challenged, these are two of the major weaknesses found: It neglects many design aspects of games, focusing too much on game mechanics. It is not suitable for all types of games, including particula...

 Game Design This week our reading task was to expand our knowledge of game design, the first paper was very interesting and it covered the qualities of games and how we can identify individual game elements. Paper 1 These 'formal elements' ar the smallest parts of a game that can be isolated and studied individually: ● Players  ● Objectives (goals)  ● Rules  ● Resources and Resource Management  ● Game State  ● Information  ● Sequencing  ● Player Interaction  ● Theme (Narrative, Backstory, Setting)  ● Games as Systems At the end of the paper, we cover what critical analysis means. It does not mean to rate a game or find its faults, its basically just means to study a game without any bias and understand each part of the game and how it relates to the play experience. The second reading is an academic paper on game design. Paper 2  it covers game design from the point of game designers and what game design is to them, some game desig...