At the beginning of this quarter, I wrote a blog post about Civilization 5, a turn-based strategy game where players lead historic civilizations into the future, attempting to achieve victory through research, exploration, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, and military conquest. In that initial article, I focused on the mechanics and dynamics of the game. Yet, I mostly understood the fun of the game as a result of how all these different components worked together to produce conflict. However, now I understand that the fun of the game comes through how it leverages all the different forms of fun that we have studied in this course. As much as it is about traditional competition through conflict, it is also about discovery through discovery of the world and how different components interact, as well as about self-expression through the type of strategy you develop. For example, some players may select to play a very military-dominant game, while others prioritize research or their economy. Along with this, the multi-player component also offers the ability to adopt fellowship through playing online, or through forming alliances with CPU civilizations.
My most salient takeaway from this course is in how I am able to identify why a game works. During my initial playtests (and prior to this course), I was able to identify whether or not I was having fun during a given game. However, throughout learning about game dynamics, randomness, and more during this course, I have been able to identify specifically why a game is fun/why it works. Part of this has been thanks to playtesting other peoples’ games and having people playtest mine: this allows an inside perspective into how game developers are thinking about different components of the game. Prior to this class, I may have thought, “Oh wow, this game is really fun.” But now, I am able to step back and acknowledge a game works due to (1) X specific mechanics, that produce (2) Y dynamics, and lead to (3) Z aesthetic.
Along with this, I have become more conscious of narrative/skill arcs during this class. During my first project, Bottom’s Up, we made a charades inspired team drinking game. However, after learning about narrative mechanics and skill arcs (both how to mitigate them, but also increase difficulty proportionally over gameplay), I was better able to build a dynamic game for the second assignment. While building the entire third puzzle for my team’s escape the box, Escaping Ophelia, I began thinking about how to design a puzzle that players are engaging with last. As a game designer, I needed to be mindful of the fact that these players will have completed two puzzles prior. What have we taught them about engaging in our game through those puzzles? How have we challenged them so far? How can we build upon those? These questions and skills are among my largest takeaways from this course!
