#Beyond Game Design

[tetley1173-igb220-blog]

What is this blog about?

By Shannon Tetley

I'm creating this blog to document my journey learning game design and it will be submitted as part of my assessment for the class IGB-220 taught at the Queensland University of Technology. It's my aim to create an interesting record of my learning and to share what I learn with others in an informal yet professional manner.

Why am I studying game design?

Well, I'm actually studying for a bachelor in IT believe it or not. My major and passion is in computer science and I'm studying minors in mobile/cloud applications and user experience. I'm learning game design for the purpose of gamifying mobile apps but that's just the academic reasoning. I've loved video games from a young age and have dreamed of making them for a living since I was a teenager. I chose to study computer science for job security and only discovered my passion for it after beginning my studies. Studying game design for my user experience minor was a happy accident but due to my interest I have embraced it enthusiastically.

How did I become obsessed with video games?

I became interested in them by watching other people play them from a young age. I've always had an active imagination and a lust for adventure. I enjoyed playing make believe and video games are a natural extension of that for me. There's nothing more fun to me than to be immersed in a fictional world were you can explore and act out fantasies.

I don't remember the first game that I ever payed but I do remember being frustrated when I had to stop playing other peoples games when I had to go home from a friend or families house. Eight year old me was determined to get hold of my own games, so when my parents gave me the option of pocket money or a PlayStation for Christmas I gave up the pocket money 😂.

Army Men: Air Attack developed by The 3DO Company

My first game was Army Men: Air Attack published by 3DO. I loved this game because I got to play with army men that could actually shoot! I loved the light-hearted and comical story of this game but it was all about the action for me. From that point, I collected games over the years and even swapped consoles with friends, including an N64 which introduced me to the world of Nintendo. In Lecture 1; Fundamentals of Game Design (Conroy), we discussed how culture naturally forms around games and play. This resonated with me, given my own experiences, sharing and playing video games with friends. My friends and I have incidentally formed a unique culture of our own which stemmed from our mutual ownership and playing of games throughout our lives.

What kind of gamer am I?

While studying in my first week of game design I came across a concept I found interesting written by Richard A. Bartle (Bateman, Step 4). Professor Bartle talks about the four main types of player, from the point of view of a game designer.

My interpretation of the four gamer types are:

Achiever - That friend who brags about getting 100% in every game they get their hands on.

Explorer - They love to learn the lore of the world and discover all the cool things in the game world.

Socialiser - Plays the game to hang out with friends or to meet new people. Often found hanging out at the grand exchange in their favourite MMO.

Killer - They're those SOBs that hang out on your ship spawn killing you in Sea of Thieves! Yes I'm still salty about that 😠, they didn't even take my loot 😂.

Metroid Prime developed by Retro Studios

I can safely say that I'm an explorer. The first game I ever got truly obsessed with was Metroid Prime developed by Retro Studios. To me, Metroid was about exploring an abandoned and corrupted alien world. I got hooked on finding all the lore walls to piece together the story about why the world was corrupted and to find out what happened to the mysterious Chozo who left behind such beautiful and intriguing ruins.

What do I hope to get out of game design?

My dream is to write backend code for games and to have the skills to turn boring old phone apps into more enjoyable experiences. Even if that dream doesn’t pan-out, this class will be a valuable opportunity to learn design practices which I wouldn’t normally learn in my more technical computer science degree.

Gaming has always been an integral part of my life. I’ve always been subconsciously aware of the culture my friends and I formed and I internally knew what kind of gamer I was – I just never had the vocabulary to describe it. Just one lecture of Fundamentals of Game Design, has prompted me to critically reflect on why my experiences playing games have been positive ones and making these links has shown me how I can tie academia to my game design.

So far, the theoretical concepts I’ve been introduced to have been very insightful and have inspired me to apply these theories to my own game design. I hope this class will continue to open my eyes to the concepts which make good games so enjoyable.

References:

Conroy, David. “Fundamentals of Game Design Lecture 1.” IGB-220 Fundamentals of Game Design, 25/7/2023, Queensland University of Technology, Online. Lecture.

Bateman, Chris. Beyond Game Design : Nine Steps Towards Creating Better Videogames, Course Technology, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=3136230.

[fawningbruises]

Here and there, between all things

[prokopetz]

I'm kind of hoping Metroid Prime 4 goes for the obvious franchise mythology gag and has Sylux remain fully armoured and speak with a masculine-sounding but obviously synthetic voice throughout the entire game, then in a post-credits scene "he" removes the helmet and promptly brings the series full circle.

[thewatcher0nthewall]

"Dance with me then"

[recursivetransformarray]

marathon shill now that the whole trilogy is free on steam

[heydragonfly]

alright i know lots of folks don’t love the chaos redesign and some folks are saying they look like meg which like i get, esp with the singular wing but to me? they look like Nyx. they look like they molded their new appearance in the image of their daughter, who they’ve recently reconnected with after aeons of separation. like they have not just emotionally become more the parent of Nyx, but physically mirrored this parenthood, this embodied connection, by choice

(this relationship which they’ve now lost, leaving them alone, again)

(until a certain princess of the dead arrives)

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Does the no "Game of Thrones" policy on your ask page also related to "House of the Dragon" or a question (mine was going to be about Arya's stab from the dark and the Aegon's prophetic "A Song of Ice and Fire" dream) where it's about "House of the Dragon" and also touches on "Games of Thrones"?

Honestly, my reaction to being reminded of GOT-only storylines, even today, is "those fucking hacks never knew what the fuck they were doing, who gives a flying fuck about their fucking stupid plot twists they did only because "[Jon] just didn’t seem right to us for this moment", matching their usual fucking stupid "Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen", so yeah, don't ask me about Game of Thrones.

[pianokantzart]

The Mushroom Kingdom The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

[the-horizon-lounge3041]

Reposting because Guerrilla liked this pic on my insta :D

[unlawfulgames]

AVE NOX & BEYOND THE PALE

Two HUGE kickstarters that I am really excited about today! I've gotten to watch their development from early on and I can say that I've not been more excited for any TTRPG books for quite a long time!

Ave Nox, a system neutral megadungeon of Forgotten history and disaster deep in the dark of the Earth!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/appalachia-gothic/ave-nox by @feralindiecharlie

Beyond the Pale, a horror Osr adventure, inspired by Jewish folklore and mysticism!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lost-pages/beyond-the-pale-a-folktale-adventure by Yochai Gal, @sheydgarden, Shari Ross, Eli Seitz and Paolo Greco as well as an extensive team

[stellastra-scribbles]

(May 16, 2022) - First concept doodle of Battlespire apprentice, Velesandriel. She exhibits certified knife cat™ energy, which if you've ever played Battlespire, that's just how the dialogue options are lol

(May-July 2022) - Some doodles based on some in-game dialogue.

[catknifetime]

I know I’ve only just seen it, but the 6th level feature for the Coven of the Green subclass of WBN’s homebrew Witch class might be one the best designed class features I’ve ever seen for D&D 5e.

First of all, the way it incentivizes fun roleplay by only activating when you actually grow new plants, while simultaneously transforming the level 2 Green Gifts feature from a primarily ribbon feature with a small utility into something extremely useful, it’s just incredible. Then as we get to the actual function of this ability it becomes even better: after fulfilling the mostly roleplay based limitations, you can create a number of potions (from a limited, but strong list) equal to your PB, that retain their power for only 24 hours.

That last part is the piece of genius game design here. It means this ability gives you a solid number of strong consumables every long rest for very little to no cost and then forces you to actually USE them. This limitation is what makes the ability both balanced and fun, because by making you use your items it makes you stronger, making the ability way more useful than if you were just collecting potions to use at some other point.

The time limit on potions effects fixes the #1 issue with consumables in any kind of game: the “what if I need them later” problem, because if you know your potion is going away at the end of the day anyway, why not use it? And using a potion is always more fun than hoarding them. Not to mention it completely shuts off all potential money making schemes from certain types of players.

I literally just realized I haven’t even talked about the selection of potions. Basically, it’s incredible. Over half of them (when counting different types resistance potions separately) are very situationally useful, now that would normally be a bad thing, but with the daily refreshing nature of this feature it just means good planning is really rewarded. Also just having potions of mind reading on hand is ridiculously fun. Honestly, I might not be able to stop myself from just brewing as many of those as possible every morning if I was playing a Green Coven Witch.

Bravo to Mazey Veselak and Brandes Stoddard, the Witch class is genuinely so fucking cool, and I’m going to incorporate it into some game I’m playing or will play somehow.

[revserrayyu]

One HSR Character a Day Extra 3 (Day 54): Feixiao

[thewatcher0nthewall]

Sixskins

[spaghetticat3899]

Kinda wish male and female Turians looked identical. I don’t care if it’s lazy, if anything it would’ve been easier to pull off, since the only reason they were introduced so late is because of the reduced memory the games had, therefore having difficulty adding a whole new model. Now, I don’t hate the female turian design, I know some folks do, but I’m kinda indifferent to them, there’s things I like and dislike. Their faces can be pretty, but the lack of back-head-covering feels a tad odd to me, especially since the plates are meant to provide protection from solar radiation. They could’ve still had the crests, just smaller or flatter, no? There’s also a line of dialogue saying most can’t tell the difference between a male and female turian, which implies they’re near-identical, right?

I don’t know, it was just something I was thinking about because I’ve been thinking about Mass Effect again.

[league-of-blorbos]

Is it just me, I'm usually a huge fan of most of LoR's redesigns but now I'm not a fan of Morgan's look here. It's not nearly as blue Mordekaiser but I think I just really like the look of her long dress with the wings wrapped around it but... idk she looks great in the first art (I love her little golden wing scarf) but her outfit is different in the level 2 art and now she lost her sleeves, gained a boob window, and is wearing a body suit that makes her look like Kai'Sa? I think her dress is supposed to be torn up but it's hard to tell with the chains all around her. And what happened to her wings being bound together so she could look more human? Like I know League Morgana had that same issue but it looks even WORSE here, I loved Janna's redesign so much why am I not into Morgana and Morde's new looks at all?

At least her followers look amazing, love the vague plague doctor influence as they are also villainous looking people who were just trying to do good for their time period