A game that I have caught myself fairly addicted throughout my years is DragonVale. Would I say that it’s my favorite ever? No. I think that the aesthetic that they create is one of discovery. You can breed dragons together in order to get new dragons. You are exposed to new elemental types of dragons the longer you play. You feed dragons food in order to make them older and gain new evolutions of a particular type of dragon. The main elemental dragons have an extra 4th evolution known as the “elder dragon” which requires a lot of food to obtain.
There is also an aesthetic of expression by allowing players to decorate their islands. Players buy habitats to display their dragons. They buy decorations to add variety to their displays. They add themes to their islands to change the way that they individually look.
Another aesthetic which I do not think is the goal of the game, but which I receive from the game is that of competition. I like being able to say that I am better than most people that I come across (though no one really plays the game anymore). I have 560 different types of dragons, 13 islands, $9 billion, and all the elder dragons. This means nothing to most people, but I do get a little bit of pride from the idea that I’m better than my siblings by a long shot.
