Game Design Workshop Reading Response 

by Tracy Fullerton

Forward

It was interesting how Zimmerman described the exploration of the game universe and finding connections between different elements as “magic” in games. Throughout my short game design study, I learned to explore designs, mechanics and cohesive storytelling in games. These were a tough process for, especially someone who had a brief idea about the game and its production. I had less experience with gameplay than my classmates and, nothing to brag about, did not search up for the latest updates and new game realizes to study deeper into the game and its industry. Whatsoever, more I explored game production through my course, I understand what Zimmerman means by the excitement of finding “magic.” While I was creating games and researching the topics for my games, it was fun. Fun by constructing my world and rules, connecting things I thought that was impossible, and communicating with experts and friends to critique my creation. I believe I am slowly stepping towards to become a game designer and will admire “magic” in games.

Preface

Fuller mentioned that game design is everywhere. She meant people are playing, learning and constructing through games, especially for the next generations who grew up with critical thinking in games. I agree with her because thinking about the past, people thought games are a waste of time. However, present-day, the game industries have grown tremendously and many people are playing the game. Games are slowly permeating our lives through a form of entertainment. it is becoming our culture.

Introduction

C.G. Jung said the most challenging task in game design is to create a good game. I am sure he meant good games by something that is fun to play, as Fuller mentioned in her writing. While I tried to create a ‘good game’ I value the balance the most. For example, good games balance all the aspects of characters, levels, player interactions to the gameplay, and environment. To achieve this, she will teach game designers to create a game that will engage and delight players.

Fuller said her approach will be non-digital prototypes and this will help us/me with cheap and easy iterations compared to all the digital prototypes.

Chapter 1: The Role of the Game Designer

She said like movies and writings, games are a new form of expression. As there is a debate on media that a game is like a movie but with an interaction between characters and audiences. Some people heavily disagree with this point however I think both have similar quality of conveying audiences just in different forms. I believe anything can become a form of expression, for example, arranging trashes on the street could be a form of expression. Why not with games where technology and graphics are immensely developing? So my point is that I truly agree to her that is a form of expression and hope that many game developers could work in a different field other than game industries.

Fuller said game designers should understand the game through the player’s perspective. To achieve this, playtesting from the early stage crucially important process. When our team(from a school project) was creating a game, critiques from different ages, genders, and fields playtesters helped to balance out the game and sometimes received creative and intellectual ideas. As Fuller mentioned, developers should be open to critiques and be flexible to change main ideas.

Communication is a key aspect of conveying others listen to you or your ideas.  Fuller pointed out that game producer should have fluent language skill to advocate clear envisions for the game users as well as the team. 

I liked Fuller's idea that creativity could be something combining 2 unrelative things words together. I liked the activity from this book where pick 2 random words and make a game within that vocabulary.

Chapter 6: Conceptualization

It is s difficult to conceptualize creative ideas. Sometimes I come up with an idea with ease but that is a special moment when idea falls into place. Therefore, when Fuller mentions creative stages to brainstorm ideas, I thought this chapter was essential information. She said brainstorm ideas in a different form. For me, scribbling what's in my head on a piece of paper helps to arrange my concepts. However, this is hard for other teammates to understand so I totally agree to Fuller that we should experiment with different types of brainstorming and also do it with a teammate to save time. She also mentioned that the idea can also come from analyzing existing games and activities. I thought this could be similar to analyzing inspirational games.

Fullerton introduces to the important part of communicating/sharing ideas: no criticism. She said rude criticism will lead to the death of creativity. Instead, use “yes, and.” Learning polite communication skill is crucially important to socialize at work also in your lives in general. 

At the end of this chapter, Fuller wants game designers to be innovative. This is a challenging yet exciting task for designers, not just game designers, to discover a new field. As I mentioned above, it would be more exciting to see this in different areas.

Chapter 7: Prototyping

I am fascinated by the FPS paper prototypes. I never thought it was possible since I read this. Fuller said this physical prototyping provides a focus on rules rather than coding and mechanics. Sometimes when I create a game in Unity, I tempt to think of the mechanics and coding that goes with the mechanic. I believe this limited my creative process. It was interesting how physical prototyping could allow for nontechnical teams to a design process. Fuller also states that this will save a lot of time because all the game production members will have a clear understanding of the game making.

"You can add rules without adding features but you can never add a feature without changing or adding rules." - I never realize this fact until making cards games. with simple digital games, I tempt to focus only on coding that did not try to understand my game as deeply as I should have.

Chapter 12: Team Structures & Agile Development

This chapter shows the distribution of game design into different sections. Largely, there are developer team and publisher team. I knew about the developer team structure where they are in charge of game design and production but I had no clue on publisher team structure. However, ironically I know more publisher companies than developer companies, such as Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft Game Studio.

From this reading, I realize the understanding of my role in a team and having the communication skills are as important as the design skills.

Chapter 2: The Structure of Games

Chapter 2 is about the structure of the games, in other words, "What defines a Game?" This chapter starts with 2 examples, Go Fish and Quake - these two games are completely different from each other because one is a PC game and one is a card game, however, the author defines why those two games are categorized as a form of entertainment by stating the similarities of element: players, objectives, procedures, rules, resources, conflict, boundaries, and outcome.

It is pretty interesting to know the comparison between two different games that have different characteristics. In terms of mechanics, Quake is built-in software and Go Fish is made by paper, those two different games provide similar experiences at some deep level as Fullerton says. Therefore, the game designer should understand the deeper significance of the system and rules to define a game as a ‘game.’

Boundaries in games are is in our minds but players think it as obstacles rather than the game structure. Fullerton has an interesting view where boundaries can be conceptual not only physical. It is easy to add boundaries in the digital world because games can easily limit the players to explore some areas. However, in physical games like the card or board games, the rules cannot physically stop the players from acting. This is why cliche or obvious rules are applied in physical games. For example, do not take the cards with you when you are going to the bathroom.

In conclusion, he declared that there is no traditional definition of the game. The restriction shouldn’t enclose our creativities and exploration to create a new field of game design.

Chapter 3: Working with a Formal Element

Chapter 3 elaborate on Chapter 2’s “what makes the game?” of players, objectives, procedures, rules, resources, conflict, boundaries, and outcome with case studies.

Game designers should profoundly consider all game elements, however, resource needs intricate notion and thoughtful consideration to stabilize the play experiences as well as ‘uniqueness’ of the gameplay. What makes game interesting and unique is innovative/ new resource that makes the player keep in touch with the game. the resource could change the rules and interface of the game world. it would be interesting to create a world that resources are conflict and the way to accomplish the game is by removing the resources??? … For example, players receive boxes and the first player who removes the box wins. But the way to remove the box is to feed your box with opponents' boxes.  As the box consumes other boxes, it becomes bigger. Once its bigger than the player, he/she will be eaten by his/her box unless he/she keeps feeding the opponents' boxes until all the boxes are eaten. 

conclusion: Fuller said combing different elements to form a game could form an interesting outcome. as playing the game, the mixture of elements gives a variety of gameplays. 

Chapter 3: The Mechanic is The Message

Brenda Romero starts with a question of can mechanics of game express colorful emotions like other media. And she agrees with the statement. Then she tells the interesting experience of her and her duaghter played the game that has a historical message. At the end of the game, Romero delivered a realization of truth, a harsh truth. Like her story, she manipulates heavy subjects to her game, like historical event or tragedy. This could be an interesting start to brainstorm ideas because I tempted to start the brainstorm with mechanics. Furthermore, Romero chooses what kind of emotional feeling the players could experience as they interacting with the system. As I was building the game I did not consider the emotional feelings. I was busy fixing my bugs. I would like to achieve a deeper emotional feeling by adding the story.

Chapter 5: working with system dynamics

In this chapter, Fullerton deeply explains what is a system in games as “a set of interacting elements that form an integrated whole with a common goal or purpose,” which means it requires that all elements be present for the players to accomplish their goal. She also mentioned that the system could be simple or complex too. more complex the system provide more unpredictable result. At the present game industries, the games with a complex system have so many game players interrelated to affect each other. Big games like League of Legend is completely unpredictable to know which team is going to win. Fullerton expanded further by stating the basic elements of systems are objects, properties, behaviors, and relationships. In the system, the relationship is the main core because even Fullerton mentioned, a system without the relationship is not a system. Therefore when one rule, one object, or one behavior of relationship changes, the whole system of the game changes. However, the greater complexity does not mean a fun game for the player.

Tunning the game system is hard to anticipate unless the developer playtests the game in a user’s experience point. This iterative process is extremely important because the game should balance out to give fair play for the players.

Designer Perspective: Frank Lantz

Lantz says, to start a  game design, you should play a 'fun' game first and change them that will be completely different to the original game. By practicing this, we will learn that if one thing changes, the whole rule change. as we try to add or take objectives out, this process becomes more complex. Afterwhile, we realize a simple and obvious rule is a hard task to achieve. As a game producer should play a lot of games, pay attention to them and understand the programmer and artist perspective. Most importantly he said to create a game that you want to play.