Book Hunting
I went to the library to expand my knowledge on Game Design, I went looking for books to inspire me to make my game feel unique and the game world feel more alive for my current and future projects.
I collected a few books from the Uclan Library that will help me improve some aspect of research and understand how games works for non gamers. making sure that I know my audience and that my work will be suitable for everyone, easy to understand and most important fun.
I will link the books, there all available to be purchased from Amazon.
The List of Books I Got from the library is:
- A Casual Revolution: Reinventing video games and their players
- Game Design Theory A New Philosophy for Understanding Games
- Introduction to the Game Industry
- Game Design - Second Edition
- The Art of Alice Madness Returns
- The Legend of Zelda Hyrule Historia
Some of these books got my attention while I was exploring the Uclan Library, my main goal was to find something that inspired me with my current and future works in the game industry, I also did find a book related to the industry itself and two books on understanding how games affect the players.
I started with the smaller books because I'm lazy and I couldn't be bothered ready them all on Monday morning. is not the correct attitude I know, so I took some time to enjoy my coffee and I started reading the first my book in two years.
My Experience
Games are always been a part of my life, I started playing games since I had memory, my first game was Quake on a computer that my dad let me borrow, I was around 6-7 year old when I first played a game and I remember spending lot of time playing that Quake and another unknown racing game that I don't remember the name. Quake was very grim and dark, and I was intrigued by it gameplay, it was simple that even a kid could play it but it had level of challenge and a good sense of level design and i still remember how the game make you explore and advance it level, finding secrets and weapons to progress trough it, fighting a vast variety of enemies like: angry green marines, sinister looking creatures, monsters with lots of claws and blood, annoying flying things that kept on spitting venom, the usual skeleton and zombies, some knight with sword, yes this game had it all and it was completely fine for a child to play it.
Quake got Remastered in 2021.
During my years as a gamer I had the blessing and chance of playing lots of different games, I will not make a list of them or it will take me forever to go trough all of them. I will talk about the main ones that are important to me and made me go trough lots of different adventures.
After the old pc stopped functioning and I sadly lots all the game progress made on the few games that I had there, my dad bought me a PlayStation 2, this was the first ever console that I owned. And couple of games my life changed drastically and fast forwards years later I become a game designer myself.
During the PS2 era I had the chance (more like the blessing) of playing these games and many others:
These are some of the game from that time that made me into the gamer and then I followed my passion into becoming a Game Designer. At that time it was hard for a kid to know that other games existed or that I could obtain other disk for my PS2, so many of these are been brought or gifted to me, I am thankful for being able to experience those games.
They were masterpieces for that time (I'll fight you if you disagree) and the story, gameplay, the music (listening to the soundtrack still bring me chills), the way the game made me feel while playing them were each unique on their own, the games that I mentioned gave me a life changing experience that I wouldn't be able to replicate for myself (sadly) but I will be honoured to make others experience something similar (hopefully better) with my own work by participating and working in the industry that changed my life forever.
At that time internet wasn't a thing and the only way to figure out how to advance in point of the game were I was stuck for day was to talk to other people who played the same game. I started to talk about those games with my classmates in school and with huge surprise many had a PS2 and they had their own stories to tell me and I started to discover the gaming community, I was happy to be part of the this life time.
Games started to become more popular around me, many of my friends had a Nintendo DS and I had the chance of playing and discovery The Zelda franchise with The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
and I was introduced to Pokémon by an old friend of mine. I got myself an R4 cartridge and lots of new games to play. my favourite will always be Pokémon Platinum Version a masterpiece and probably still my favourite of the franchise.
These games that I mentioned were easy to understand, I played them and mange to complete all of them as a kid, they were easy to understand and offered a good challenge.
Researches trough Books
I agree with the Autor of A Casual Revolution regarding the interaction between gamers and non gamers based on my own experience mainly, and the the way games interacted with my friends and family members.
The Autor Jesper Juul (game researcher) explored this topic on his book, regarding the rise of the of Casual Games and Players around the year 2000, he mentioned them as "completely different creatures" from the traditional gamers (and I do agree), or the how "Hardcore players who invest a large amount of time and resources towards playing videogames, and enjoying difficult games" (I did participate to this activity myself for some time).
I would say that the audience for the games depends on the game itself, some are more easy accessible like the modern Fortnite and requires less skills of knowledge for the player to play the game, but skilled players will be better than casual ones, some other games are more demanding and require the player to put more skills, practise and dedication like League of Legends, this game is the most played currently and i myself invested 8-9 years playing this game with many friends, yes I did play this game nearly everyday for those years reaching high ranks in a competitive environment.
An example of Hardcore game that the community describe as the "hardest game" of the current generation is Dark Souls and other Soulslike games made by FromSoftware. this game took the concept of hard game and made fun of it by creating a new scale of difficulty for the current gaming era and for the modern players.
The author Jesper Juul wrote about how: "games commonly knows as casual yields a clue in that these games allow us to have a meaningful play experience within a short time frame" due to how they are structured.
The Autor also wrote: "On the one hand, given that some players play casual games in what we could hardcore ways, it could be tempting to conclude that a game can be played in any way players desire, and that game design as such can therefore be ignored" .
He also mentioned: "A player is someone who interacts with a game, and a game is something that interacts with a player; players choose or modify a game because they desire the experience they believe the game can give to them"
As I uploaded the picture above as ironic example, the player has the choice in most games for the difficulty in which he can experience the game and this will affect how the player will progress and interact with the game and also the the way this person will remember the game itself.
Creating a simple game will result in something boring and dull yet easy accessible to a vast audience, making the game hard will fed up the player making most of them "rage quit".
Finding a perfect balance for the game is the key to success, or you can just say this game is difficult just like Dark Soul to attract Diehard fans into your game (won't recommend it).
The Author continues in his book about the difference between casual games and their approach towards videogame and the difference between them and hardcore players.
Moving to the next book because Jesper Jull bored me with information that I already knew by experiencing it myself as gamer in an active community that is constantly evolving,
I started reading Game Design Theory by Keith Burgum, in this book the Autor talks about the rise in popularity of Videogames during the last years. the Autor wrote: "In the recent decades, games have become increasingly popular and have grown to be a significant market force."
And the Autor also wrote: "Today the games industry is larger than either the movie industry or the music industry, and games now compete with books for the the top revenues in the entertainment business".
I couldn't agree more than this, games are far superior than movies, this is a fact.
Books were a valid form of information and entertainment, I myself use to read lots of book then suddenly I stopped (I wonder why).
Games took time to make and they are a refined piece of modern art, far more complex and rewarding compared than standing and watching a painting in a museum or a film in the cinema, unlike those "particular activities" that will give you will watch and move on with your life, games will always be a part of you and will require your full attention, mental and physical participation to be completed and experienced fully.
Book in the other hands have their own plus, as relaxing side activity to do before going to bed, or reading under a tree and enjoying a nice chill day outside. sadly is 2022 nobody does that anymore everyone is on their phone nowadays, addicted to their screens. this is were games come and gets people attention thanks to mobile gaming and advertisement that will make even the most casual of the player look up for the gameplays on YouTube out of curiosity, this of course, depends on the person itself or good marketing strategy.
The game industry itself is still constantly rising and more and more depending on maintaining their audience entertained with new and continuation of their gaming franchises, the same goes with the movie industry.
But there is a major difference that makes game far superior to movies.
Movies are an experience that you will be able experience once and you have to sit and watch it trough it, not all movies will be able to surprise you like they did at first, the magic of Harry Potter is fully captured into it, but re-watching it over and over will become boring. meanwhile experiencing it in the games and participating and interacting with the world will make the player belong to it and actively being there engaging in Hogwarts, making your dream coming true, even if you are not there physically.
Not all games are perfect, but most movies and tv shows are slowly in decline because they are running out of valid ideas, the demands are high for both industry, as I watch a boring movie I may fall asleep and not even realize it (it happened a few times), for the game I will just rage quit or load a different game, this is just my personal opinion, but I do think is very common now days.
Making the game fun by interacting with a familiar world, or creating a world were the player can get lost and explore is far more fun than watching someone else on a screen enjoying it, yet still my personal opinion.
We can take The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as an example, a game itself is massive, the graphic itself is not the best but the player can get lost and have great adventure with their own experience that will be different from someone else, watching a movie scripted will give the audience the same experience, and it will be the same experience if you re-watch it but will less impact from the first time, but a different playing trough in Skyrim again.
In Game Design Theory the Autor wrote: "There is noting about games that says that they must have been designed internationally by a human being to be games". -"many people's workplace function as games: there are goals (solution) there is competition, and they often require that the 'player' makes meaningful, ambiguous, decisions".
This goes back to the interactivity we humans have on our everyday life. games give the players a choice or the illusion of a choice in some case, they are events and things that may happen as you go trough the Story. a good example can be The Last of Us as the player have the control of the story and it will have a major impact because he is physically and mentally engaged into the story.
The rest of the book bored me as they are things that I already knew and experienced in my life many times, so I will concluded that games allow the freedom of expression for the person playing it, giving that person unique and memorable experience that they will carry own for the rest of their life, they can share these memories with their friends and the rising and large gaming community.
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