Game Testing

This week's reading was about giving criticism and how it can actually be useful. The useful and good type of criticism is called "constructive criticism". It gives feedback to a person on things that can be improved or issues that can be avoided in a way that doesn't make it sound like you're insulting the person.

When giving constructive criticism, you have to make sure your opinions stay valid and unbiased. This means that the feedback has to be reliable/from a good source,to make sure you know what you're talking about, and free from personal preferences. As we've learnt before, everyone has different preferences in things, so when giving feedback, we need to make sure we avoid what we would personally like to be done and instead give overall feedback that will help the person improve on their ideas.

Along with that, make sure your criticism is clear, easy to understand and relevant to the topic. Be specific in what needs improvement rather than the typical, vague responses "I like it"/"I don't like it". These responses won't help the person so just point out clearly what works well and what doesn't

Giving criticism correctly can avoid people getting their feelings hurt and giving them low self-esteem. So as long as your feedback is specific,understandable,unbiased and reliable, it should be very helpful to the person you're giving it to.

Week 9: Reading and Writing

When I first started doing the readings, I found them pretty difficult as most the time I didn't know what to write for the blogs or I wouldn't understand the readings. However, as I did more I got better at typing up blogs about the readings, or at least I'd like to think I got better. I still struggle with some readings but overall, it was a nice experience writing blogs.

Blogging was something new that I've never tried before and I honestly thought I'd hate it but it wasn't the worst experience. With other classes, they'd give readings but I wouldn't really read them, I'd quickly look through but not really pay attention but having to write a blog based off what I just read made me pay attention to details in the readings a lot more which made me learn a lot more too.

I think my favourite reading has been the latest reading I did which had to do with game fun. I learnt about the different types of fun and even though its basic knowledge that everyone has different preferences in things, it informed me about why we have these preferences and how it relates back to our ancestors which I thought was very interesting.

I don't think I have a big accomplishment for this class, I wish I managed my time a bit better and stayed on top of my work more but I'm happy that at least I tried something new and didn't completely give up on it. In the future, I definitely will try a lot harder to keep up with the work.

One of my favourite images from my blog is the one shown above. It's a screenshot I found online from the game "Corpse Party. I like it because it brings back memories to when I first found the game and how much I used to like it. I loved the story and the game style, although some scenes or parts were kind of disturbing, I still really enjoyed it.

I look forward to maybe doing more blog posts. I kind of enjoyed doing them, even though I didn't do all the blog posts I was supposed to do, I'd feel pretty accomplished when I'd actually do them, especially after really long readings. It would always be such a relieving feeling getting it done in time, especially since I tend to leave things til last minute.

Game Fun

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In the first article I read was "Natural Funativity" by Noah Falstein, it talks about what makes a game fun when everyone find different types of things fun,how evolution and what our ancestors did influences what we find fun today. It also talks about how fun is subjective and that even though we have a hard time defining the word "fun", "we know it when we have it".

The theory of "Natural Funativity" comes from the merging of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Natural Selection and the question of "What is Funativity Quotient?" from Steve Arnold. This theory is broken down into 3 sections:

• Physical fun
• Social fun 
• Mental fun

Physical fun:

People are most drawn to something that challenges their survival skills. They will continue to focus on something until they can overcome the threats and obstacles which also improves their skills. We find enjoyment in this as it relates back to our ancestors and how they had the need to perfect their skills so that they had a higher chance of survival.

Social Fun:

The way this relates to evolution is not through the means of survival but through reproduction, meeting and attracting mates. Games don't really focus on "attracting a mate" but through things like being able to play online multiplayer, that has changed. Devices and platforms that allow players to be in contact with one another in the real world allow the social aspect of games to develop. As "tribal creatures", we form groups and enjoy to learn from each other. We find ways of survival through sharing and learning from information in social situations and activities rather than through physical strength.

Mental Fun:

Mental fun focuses on improving our mental abilities as a form of fun. Our intelligence is what allows us to make use of our physical strengths, tools, language and carrying out conversations. All those things complement one another. Intelligence is the perception and manipulation of patterns, people enjoy finding patterns in something and learning from it. Being able to recognise a pattern and then act upon it has been a very useful survival skill. It is a workout for the brain.

Many games and activities are a mix of 2 or all 3 different types of fun, which is known as blended fun. However, by understanding the reason why we find these forms of survival so interesting and fun can help come up or further develop on game ideas/concepts. By combining these 3 things, you can capture the interest of many people and how much fun they have playing the game you've created.

The second article I looked at was "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades:Players who suit MUDs" by Richard Bartle. It talks about what people like from a MUD. Bartle collected information from a discussion on what players liked,didn't like,why they played and what improvements they could make to a MUD. He summarised and noticed a pattern in the answers which divided the information into 4 groups. Most people drifted between all 4 groups but overall, the majority was fixed on only 1 group. These 4 groups are:

• Achievers- Focus on points and rising in levels as their main goal. The only time they mix in the other 3 groups is if it gains them more points
• Explorers- Explore the game and its features. Mixes with the other 3 groups if it gives them access to new areas or gives ideas on new things to try.
• Socialisers- Interested more in forming relationships with players than the game itself. Mix in other 3 groups if it allows them to talk to people and understand what they are talking about.
• Killers- Enjoy causing distress to the players and chaos in the game. Only mix in the other 3 groups if it allows them to become stronger to cause more damage, find people to taunt or place to cause chaos in.

Each of these groups enjoy the game differently, however, administrators need to maintain balanced relationships in these groups so the game can still be enjoyable for everyone

Game GDD

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This weeks reading was "Design Considerations" by Greg Aleknevcius. In this reading, he discusses how a game can be a lot more appealing and enjoyable to someone when a lot of thought is put into the games components, rules and design of its box. He gives some suggestions to what you might want to consider when designing your own game. I thought some of the points were very interesting as I wouldn't have really thought about those things if I hadn't read this article.

An example of some points I found helpful were to use high contrasting colours for different player pieces but to carefully think through the colours you want to use to make sure people who are colourblind can still distinguish the player pieces. Along with using different colours, you can use different shapes to differentiate the pieces too. A game can run a lot more smoothly and be a lot more enjoyable if different functions had different design components.

The article says that first impressions of a game come from its box which is very true meaning a lot of thought has to be put into the box design too and not just the game itself. Make sure to have the games name on the side of the box and think through how you want to print your game info so that consumers have choice in how they store the game.

After reading this, writing the rules of a game sounds a lot more difficult than expected. Some things the articles says you can do to avoid or minimise difficulties is to avoid writing very vague rules so that players can "decide for themselves how to play", it might come off as if the game isn't fully finished and another point was to give examples of where those rules apply to guide players and give a better understanding.

This article was very helpful and gave some good advice on how to design your game so that its a lot more enjoyable for players.

Game Elements

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This reading discussed a lot of different aspects in games that need to be considered when creating a game and when critiquing it.This reading really helped me understand better the things I'll need to think about when I will be creating my own game. Implementing the things mentioned in the reading will definitely make the game a lot more enjoyable when played.

One of the main things I realised I will have to focus on to make the game enjoyable is the rules and objectives of the game. The player needs to understand what they are doing or what they need to do to fully enjoy their experience. If they are aimlessly wandering around trying to figure everything out by themselves, they'll lose interest in the game pretty quickly,which is something I want to avoid. I'm obviously going to consider the other elements that make up a game too but those 2 are the main things I'd like to concentrate on.

Another thing that stood out to me in the reading was games as systems, which basically says that changing one element of the game can actually have a much bigger effect on other elements as they are all connected to one another. I didn't really think making a few minor adjustments could make such a difference so now I know when I'm making a change(s) in my game, I'll really have to think about the possible effects it might have on the other aspects and carefully think through what things I want to correct.

In the article by Doug Church, he states that people lack in design vocabulary which affects how we critique people's games. People usually just state whether a game is "fun" or "not fun" and leave it at that, but that's not very helpful. Game designers would want a more in-depth analysis of their games so they can understand better what they did well and what they need to improve on. However, they can't really get that type of critique if no one knows "the language of game design" so finding a way to word feedback is something people would need to work on.