Week 4 - lecture notes

Lecture notes

In the lecture, the lecturer talked about a story where a client and he were discussing a concept, the client wanted his vision to fit around a technology (virtual reality) that doesn't necessarily fit with the idea all that well. This highlights the importance of how a genre should fit in a game. And the importance is this having a genre fit in a game and not the other way round. If you do the reversed we have created a good game.
The problem with fitting your game around a genre is that sometimes it heavily restricts the innovation of the game, it cuts its great potential e.g. if you had a game that revealed around ice cream, this idea could work well if it was more so a mobile app game a bit like candy crush. But if you make games from a horror genre perspective and you try to make the ice cream idea, then the potential innovation is going to be quite restricted.
You should have different people each week to review the work you have done this week, in order to avoid creating an echo chamber.
One of the most important aspects to games design the pitch, a pitch is a brief 1 - 2 sentence description of the games essential experience, foundation and key features in an easy format.
Also, the 2 sentences pitch is commonly known as the elevator or pitch, the ideology of the elevator pitch is to present the concept of the pitch to your boss under 60 seconds.
The pitch is almost like a sacred text that game developers use to refer back to any point doing the game's development, they question whether what they designed is the same as our pitch.
There are three lenses.
Lenses of beauty - lenses of beauty consists mostly of the feature of the game e.g.
What elements of my game that needs to be combined in order for it to be beautiful.
'What is beautiful in the context of my game ?'
Will the game be 2D or 3D
Here are some of the questions that a designer could use to ask themselves whether the game is beautiful?
'How can I make each element more beautiful?'
'What is beauty in the context of my game?'
Lens of inherent interest - the lense could be summarised as this
What aspect of the game catches the player's attention immediately?

This could relate to many things:

Genre
Mechanic
Aesthetic
Gameworld

Does my game let my player do something they will have never done before?
Does my game give an experience that they have been longing for but never had the opportunity. Like a first-person point of view of rising of dolphins.
What are my games base instincts?
It's about the primordial feelings e.g. love, lust, into the game.
If your game is about ice cream and the products behind it, I talk about how animals are exploited by humans in order to make these frozen treats. The player would probably feel a sense of empathy towards the animals, and I could make the ice cream vegan and promote veganism.
Lense of projection - with the player do something they can't do it real life?
What can my player relate? e.g. link, there is nothing about link that the player can relate to as he has no personality, but that is the magic of his design, the player could project all that they are into the character.
Lately, there has been debate recently whether having a character a blank slate is a good design or not, will the player really project themselves onto a character?
The idea of relating to things means that you have something to relate to your audience, though this could potentially trim your audience down, specialisation is better than generalisation.
But be aware not to over specialise the target audience.

Lecture notes

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You should have different people each week to review the work you have done this week, in order to avoid creating an echo chamber.

One of the most important aspects to games design the pitch, a pitch is a brief 1 - 2 sentence description of the games essential experience, foundation and key features in an easy format.

Also, the 2 sentences pitch is commonly known as the elevator or pitch, the ideology of the elevator pitch is to present the concept of the pitch to your boss under 60 seconds.

The pitch is almost like a sacred text that game developers use to refer back to any point doing the game's development, they question whether what they designed is the same as our pitch.

There are three lenses.

Lenses of beauty - lenses of beauty consists mostly of the feature of the game e.g.

What elements of my game that needs to be combined in order for it to be beautiful.

'What is beautiful in the context of my game ?'

Will the game be 2D or 3D

Here are some of the questions that a designer could use to ask themselves whether the game is beautiful?

'How can I make each element more beautiful?'

'What is beauty in the context of my game?'

Lens of inherent interest - the lense could be summarised as this

What aspect of the game catches the player's attention immediately?

This could relate to many things:

Genre

Mechanic

Aesthetic

Gameworld

​

Does my game let my player do something they will have never done before?

Does my game give an experience that they have been longing for but never had the opportunity. Like a first-person point of view of rising of dolphins.

What are my games base instincts?

It's about the primordial feelings e.g. love, lust, into the game.

If your game is about ice cream and the products behind it, I talk about how animals are exploited by humans in order to make these frozen treats. The player would probably feel a sense of empathy towards the animals, and I could make the ice cream vegan and promote veganism.

Lense of projection - with the player do something they can't do it real life?

What can my player relate? e.g. link, there is nothing about link that the player can relate to as he has no personality, but that is the magic of his design, the player could project all that they are into the character.

Lately, there has been debate recently whether having a character a blank slate is a good design or not, will the player really project themselves onto a character?

The idea of relating to things means that you have something to relate to your audience, though this could potentially trim your audience down, specialisation is better than generalisation.

But be aware not to over specialise the target audience.