As much as I already considered myself a pretty serious gamer before this class, I can’t help but feel as if my notion of video games has completely changed. I still (unfortunately) dedicate most of my gaming to League of Legends, but I am extremely thankful for having been introduced to the world of game design. I really wanted an opportunity to immerse myself in this world, and it didn’t disappoint. And, even though I was slightly familiar with Brackeys and GMTK, this class truly flipped a switch on how I think about games.
Never had I thought about the amount of effort and science that comes with creating an onboarding experience and introducing mechanics to a player through interaction loops. Reading articles and watching talks about these development processes were eye-opening when it came to playing and developing new games! Now, everytime I play a new game (which is also something I have to thank this class for) I keep thinking about these things… How is it so natural that I just ‘know’ what to do? Why don’t I get stuck? Why am I having fun? It’s almost as if I can’t stop playing like a designer… These concepts especially stuck with me during our playtests. After also watching GMTK’s Video, it was quickly obvious that we, as designers, were making so many assumptions about how people would interact with our game. This was perhaps our greatest challenge.
Playtesting meant we had to get out of our comfort zone and show people a product that was filled with flaws. It also meant we would receive a lot of feedback, and be open to heavily change our vision for our game. But the experience of receiving feedback and observing people play something you created was amazing. The amount of change that came from playtesting insights we would have never had as a team made our game so much better, and really reinforced a personal notion of the benefit of putting oneself in new situations!
Throughout this class, I grew so much when playing a variety of games and thinking like a game designer. I was introduced to a more academic notion of game design (such as our weekly readings), and quickly fell in love with this practice. So much so, that I have decided to spend my summer learning more about game design and Unity, and creating games with my brother. It feels as though Game Design is the culmination of everything that I have enjoyed during my college experience, and I am extremely excited to see what my relationship with this practice has in store for the future! So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who was involved in making this class amazing 🙂
