CS247G has enabled me to appreciate the complexity of games. Typically, when I start a new game, I’m addicted to the learning curve then drop it once it’s no longer challenging and new. I treated games like any other content these days, as short bursts of dopamine. Because I’m mostly a mobile gamer, I thought that game design was more business focused on addiction building. However, this class has provided a completely different perspective.
I looked forward to the critical play every week as it allowed me to discover a new genre of games that I hadn’t tried. The most memorable ones were Journey, Her Story, and Doki Doki Literature Club. These games challenged my previous assumption of what games were. I was in awe of how Journey could evoke the same sense of danger as fighting a big boss when all I could do was walk. I experienced how games could get emotional and how they could fulfill my psychological needs beyond just fun. Given my relationship with games, I spent a lot of time designing for game satisfaction in both of my projects. For my P1 project we had to do a lot of playtesting to balance the sense of loss and reward. My P2 team put in a lot of effort to enable players to feel a sense of competence and self-efficacy. It was a lot of fun learning more about the formal elements of game design. I began seeing games more as an artform.
Because of this class, I began carrying around the small sketchbook I haven’t touched in years. Sketchnotes were my excuse to doodle again. I found myself being more on the art side of our projects rather than the technical. As part of this, I had to learn how to communicate my art decisions. There was also some challenging in scoping how much of the artistic vision can be put into development given our time frame.
I found the biggest challenge was to come up with a concept starting from nothing. It was not a creative block but more decision paralysis on the infinite directions that we could go. In both projects, it took a while for us to come to a direction we were all excited to pursue.
In the future, I’m planning to create more cozy games that build friendship. This class has rekindled my appreciation for games, and I’m excited to see what’s in store, by playing larger variety of games beyond those I’m familiar with.
