Pick a game you love, and identify a set of mechanics that create a dynamic that makes a certain kind of fun for you (150-300 words). Submit this on the blog.
One game I really like is called Hades. It’s a game where you play as the son of the greek god Hades and you’re trying to escape the underworld by fighting monsters/bosses and progressing through different layers of the underworld until you reach the surface. It’s a rogue-lite which means that when you die in each “run” you must restart, but you can level up your character and get new weapons before starting the next run. So by the time you complete the game, your character is much stronger than when you started, but you’re also a better player.
Of the eight aesthetics we learned about, this game hits Sensation, Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, Discovery, a little bit as Expression, and some Submission. The game’s art is BEAUTIFUL which checks off Sensation and the attack mechanics for different weapons feel like they have weight to them because of the artistic and colorful animations and the sounds associated with them. The greek mythological world allows the player to fantasize and the underlying storyline between all the characters enables a deep Narrative that continues even after you “beat” the game. The game is inherently challenging as each run is a different, procedurally generated map with different items available for pickup which means there isn’t one way to play and progress, you must learn all parts of the game. As you get farther into each run, you discover new runs, new opponents and bosses, and new characters who offer help to you–or want to fight. There’s a few types of in game currency which allows for picking weapons and customizing them and you also have a bedroom that you can get artwork for. You can also give gifts to different characters in-game and they’ll help you in different ways (Expression). And lastly, the game is just fun to play as a pastime because you can set different “heats” (difficulties) to play it on really easy or hard mode.
For me, the fact that each run is different depending on the skills I pick up through the run, keeps the game interesting. It’s gotten to the point where I can make it to the final boss and probably beat him no matter how the run goes, but being able to customize the difficulty before the run and set new time records for myself makes it fun. I also like comparing these records with my friends to see who is better.
