This class demonstrated to me that there is so much truth in the phrase “learning is an ongoing journey”. It also revealed the complexities of game design as a field, highlighting that no matter how many games one creates, there is always something new to discover.
During Project 1, my team and I developed a social game in a style with which I was already quite familiar. We encountered few challenges and achieved significant success. In fact, I consider “Brainiac,” my P1 game, to be one of the projects I am most proud of to date. I’m particularly happy with the visual design elements, and I think that I really improved at package design in particular. This success, however, left me unprepared for the challenges posed by Project 2.
Project 2’s narrative focus introduced numerous new elements for me. Specifically, I had never worked on a game where the primary objective was uncovering the narrative. Our team struggled to craft a realistic and compelling story, oftentimes disagreeing on the direction in which the narrative and game should go. Despite learning about the hero’s journey and other narrative devices in class, applying these concepts proved to be quite challenging, particularly because this seems to be a much more subjective topic than what we’d learned previously.
Additionally, I faced difficulties with prototyping, especially at low fidelity, for materials I had never previously worked with. My most favorite thing I learned in class this quarter was probably Amy’s lecture on sound and mood, even though both sound and mood ended up being challenges for our Project 2. Though we made audio recordings and tried to theme our items, we faced challenges acquiring prototype materials throughout each stage of fidelity. Ultimately, my team had to purchase many items to use for the project to achieve something that we felt like reached a necessary level of completion.
Balancing these two new challenges with puzzle building was a significant challenge for me, even though puzzles were something that mapped onto my previous skills in a much more cohesive way. I in particular enjoyed and remember clearly the lessons/readings on balance and chance, and would be interested in making a puzzle focused non-narrative game in the future to sharpen my skills. In the end, I came away with a deeper understanding of all three areas.
After all, the most important lesson I learned this quarter was to embrace the vast amount of knowledge I have yet to acquire. The only way to learn is by taking risks and diving headfirst into new projects in unfamiliar areas. After all, the only way to gain experience is through action. I think I’m a much better game designer today than I was 10 weeks ago, but I know that I will be many times better again 10 weeks from now.
