31 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2022
  2. Jul 2022
    1. Games are like that. Everyone thinks because games are easy to play, they must be easy to make. The challenge of a making a game is significantly harder. When we design a utilitarian tool, we have to make a complex set of requirements simple and easy to use for the user. But when making a game, we have to take equal amounts of complexity and make it simple, easy to useand fun. If a game is not satisfying to play, people will put it down. If excel is not satisfying, people will soldier on because math is more unpleasant than excel.

      This is an important think to understand - that making games to seem simple is quite hard. It takes a lot of work and thinking to make something simple for others to use. That is the key work of the developer historian – to take loads of historical research and turn it into easy to understand games.

  3. bafybeibbaxootewsjtggkv7vpuu5yluatzsk6l7x5yzmko6rivxzh6qna4.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeibbaxootewsjtggkv7vpuu5yluatzsk6l7x5yzmko6rivxzh6qna4.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. The result is that the best games tend to be addictive, as playersare so strongly motivated to continue the play that they find it difficult to get back to their normalactivities (Grüsser, Thalemann, & Griffiths, 2006; Kim, Namkoong, Ku, & Kim, 2008).

      Designing "Bend the Curve" or other Rapid Whole System Change games, we could not intentionally make games addictive as that would create out-of-balance social situations which could create social tensions and therefore be applying the same pathological logic that has created the conditions we are attempting to transform. Hence the other motivating factors must be so strong as to compensate for techniques that purposely embed addiction.

  4. Nov 2021
  5. Aug 2021
    1. The beauty of space science-fantasy adventure is to manually pilot or captain your own spaceship into the vast unknown. For exploration, combat and various other role-specific game mechanics, the cockpit view gives a sense of ownership and grounding to a player’s chosen ship purchases. This immersive first person, seated view will allow players to utilize equipment such as flightsticks, throttles, multi-functional button control panels, head tracking hardware, and most importantly, virtual reality head-mounted displays.

      And yeah, Space Flight Simulation!

    2. The first principle driving the entire economy of Star Atlas is the mining gameplay. The wealth derived from mining creates many other branching revenue streams for players to contribute to and establish a career. From trading raw and refined ore, to cargo hauling, to crafting retail components, there is a broad range of career choices a player can embody and advance within the specializations of that career.

      How do players play and make money?

    3. To augment that grand strategy, Star Atlas enables players to captain deep-space, crewed spaceships to scan and discover celestial and terrestrial assets. Once discovered, rich claims that are staked can be mined, refined and traded through a network of commercial mining installations, refineries, and the Universal Marketplace. Exploration will lead to many other surprises in the outer limits of space. In this mode the player primarily interacts with a top down space view showing their spaceship exterior with the ability to go into an x-ray view to see the interior of the ship and the crew performing their individual tasks. Players can also captain and pilot the ship manually through the first person cockpit/bridge view. Cockpit view is also suitable for seated virtual reality gaming.

      How Star Atlas' Grand Strategy implemented?

    4. The grand strategy genre of video games encourages claim staking to expand your empire and install strategic trade routes using an offensive and defensive tactical plan of action. In this mode the player primarily interacts with a dynamic overview of the charted and uncharted regions of space via the map view aka the Star Atlas.

      Star Atlas's grand strategy.

    5. The way a blockchain network is designed closely mimics the basis for the genre of Star Atlas. Mining or staking is the core of how blockchain assets are proven to be legitimate and tangible. To discover mined assets requires exploration on the part of a miner to unlock value. People set up mining or staking nodes and plug them into the blockchain network to enhance the network while also earning value from it. The hybrid experience of Star Atlas closely mimics the nature of how blockchain technology functions.

      Star Atlas design mimics how a blockchain network functions.

  6. Apr 2021
    1. A Game-design MasterpieceTake one simple game mechanic, and make the absolute most of it – that's exactly what the developers of Jim is Moving Out did, and it worked really well! The core of this game is stunningly simple: a few little boxes (furniture) inside a big box (Jim's house), one or two flying fellas (the players) and a physics engine. Think about the most creative ways you could make this into a game. Anything you think about, this game did it. What if you had to squeeze through narrow holes without breaking too much furniture? It's in the game. What if the room had wheels? Yep, it's there too. What if one of the walls was missing and you had to avoid losing the furniture? The whole co-op is about this. Zero gravity? Yes, even that is in the game.
  7. Mar 2021
  8. Sep 2020
  9. Dec 2019
    1. games are low stakes, and they have an incredibly powerful and repeatable feedback mechanism. I don't know about you, but I hate to lose and love to win.
    1. In a nutshell, the King's Keys deck started as an experiment to see what card games would be like if you rebuilt playing cards from the ground up. Instead of using ranks and suits, each card has a number (from one to four), one of four items, and one of four colors. The result is what I call a 4x4x4 deck where 64 playing cards each have a unique combination of these three parts.
  10. Jul 2019
    1. 12 Tenets of Board Game Design for Stonemaier Games

      These tenets seem to fall from the Meta-Game (experience) idea discussed in board game design books.

  11. Apr 2016
    1. Each class that derives from UObject has a singleton UClass created for it that contains all of the meta data about the class instance. UObject and UClass together are at the root of everything that a gameplay object does during its lifetime. The best way to think of the difference between a UClass and a UObject is that the UClass describes what an instance of a UObject will look like, what properties are available for serialization, networking, etc. Most gameplay development does not involve directly deriving from UObjects, but instead from AActor and UActorComponent. You do not need to know the details of how UClass/UObject works in order to write gameplay code, but it is good to know that these systems exist.
  12. Aug 2015
  13. Jan 2015
    1. We are using the term phygital as a way of emphasizing that these are a class of objects that have not simply had some digital functionality embedded within then but are connected devices whose functionality and operation is designed to exist simultaneously in both virtual and physical space.

      defining "phygital"

    2. this paper is speculating on a future in which creating game objects that link the physical and the digital presents an exciting and practical opportunity for game designers. However, such objects require interaction design approaches that not only utilise understandings from product design and graphical user interface but also how they might effectively be combined dynamically.

      Yep

    3. Example Game/Interaction Spaces for Game Objects used with Screens.

      This diagram showing interface interaction between screen space, player space and 3D space is intriguing

    4. Dan Saffer suggests hidden affordances may actually be regarded as ‘discoverable’ (Saffer 2013) in recognition that designers may deliberately allow them to be revealed through accidental use or deliberate exploration. This is similar to the practice of game designers leaving hidden elements, or ‘easter eggs’, within their games that are discovered by accident, this practice hints at a possible interesting opportunity yet to be applied to game objects.

      The use of 'easter eggs' inside game design -- purposeful hidden objects and pathways that fall outside the common map of the game - is fascinating. I have students who say they play games in order to find these elements.

    5. the interaction design of phygital objects for games requires games designers to not only fully understand the virtual aspects the affordances they are perhaps used to, but also to extend these to include the affordances we associate with physical objects to ensure their overall game design does not cause confusion for the player.

      agency considerations in design planning

    6. Interaction Design as defined by Verplank

      Interesting sketch here of equating emotions to our view of the world, and how we interact with information.

    7. mimetic interfaces

      When the virtual (game play) action is analogous to physical action .. ie, guitar hero: You play a guitar, not a joystick ..

    8. phygita

      Now, there's a word I have not seen before.

    9. Internet of Things

      I hate this term ... more marketing for businesses than reality in our lives.

    10. games that use objects as physical game pieces to enhance the players’ interaction with virtual games.

      Intriguing .. pushing the boundaries between the tangible and the virtual ...