Critical-Glossary
Some gameplay mechanics are completely artificial, meaning they do not make logical sense based on the form of the game. When such mechanics are privileged within a game's design, we tend to label these games as being "arcade" like. I describe these gameplay mechanics as being abstract.
Folded level design that folds back and forth at multiple creases that creates a pattern either in the types of creaes or a patten of some concerte nature.
It is a design innovation that applies to games that are played in real time. By taking the progression of real time and breaking it down in specific contextual ways, a new level of game design can be reached. This is the essence of asynchronous time, or async.
Design elements/choices that create more negative space than actual space. Also, design elements that ignore form fits function.
In music, Counterpoint is the writing of musical lines that sound different on their own, but harmonize when played together. How the melody of a song interacts with the other lines is the focus of Counterpoint.
Counterpoint, in gaming, is a word for the way gameplay develops past optimization by layering interactive elements into a single gameplay experience. When each layer influcences, interacts, and enhances the functions/gameplay of each other layer the gameplay emerges into a medium of expression that reflects the individuality of a player and the dynamics that reflect the complexity of the world we live in.
A diminishing trend is one where game elements are either added or subtracted that reduce the amount of consequences and allow for mechanics to be executed less precisely.
A measure of how the changes in the method of input are paralleled with the action in the game according to the form of the mechanic. If you quickly press the green button on your controller, does the game quickly press the button on the screen? If you hold the button on your controller, is the button on the screen held down as well?
When a section contains an individual gameplay idea that isn't significantly and directly related to another section, then that section is considered a distinct section.
An measure of how the game world responds to the action. According to the form of the game world and the mechanic, does the world react realistically? What is the extent of the properties of the mechanic? Are the reactions to the mechanic special cases or can the resulting actions continue to effect the game world?
Any variable element in a videogame.
* player: character(s), cursor, avatar, HUD
* level: non aggressive interactive (physical) pieces
* enemy: hostile/aggressive forces
* audio: sound effects, music
* visual: non-interactive on screen elements
* rumble: force feedback
In counterpoint, If the player must combine secondary functions with primary functions to progress, then the game idea is considered to be expanded.
Like Marxist criticism, the most successful Feminist critique of a game involves analyzing how the range of player functions that affect female characters directly or indirectly reveal the operations of patriarchy. When the player is encouraged or forced to play in a way that depicts men as strong, rational, protective and women as weak, emotional, submissive, and nurturing, then the game can be said to support and reinforce patriarchal genders roles and ideologies. Patriarchal values work to oppress women, and all feminist theory and criticism works to promote women‘s equality. A Feminist analysis can become more complex when finding examples of actions toward women if a game doesn’t feature any women or the game allows for limited interaction with women. Writing essays about such games often leads to finding evidence by absence. In other words, a Feminist critic’s central piece of evidence may be what can’t be done to women instead of what can.
How a game accelerates or creates forward momentum. This factor of gameplay isn't necessarily about speed. More specifically, it looks at how a game's interactions feed back into the player's options/experience like a snowball rolling down hill.
Level design that resuses a space with the second use containing an extra layer to the gameplay that builds on the knowledge and experiences established on the first layer.
Form fits function is a powerful game design principle that has powered many of Nintendo's greatest games. Using familiar visuals, games can use their form to communicate to the player. If there is a ball resting on a tee and the player avatar has a golf club in their hands, they better be able to swing the club and hit the ball. Otherwise, why put such things in front of the player in the first place? Keeping the form true to the functions and limits of a game creates the cleanest most easily enjoyable experiences.
When a game's mechanics inspire, shape, and define the creation of ancillary parts of a game. ie. story, setting, premise, characters, music, audio
A sometimes hidden innovation intended to attract attention and increase the unique value of a product or work. dictionary.com
A quality of a mechanic. Does the input yield the same action every time? Or can the input result in a variety of different actions?
Interplay is the back and forth encouragement of player mechanics between any two elements in a game. Put simply, interplay is where actions and elements in a game aren't means to an end, but fluid opportunities that invite the player to play around with the changing situation.
A measure of the degree to which input method matches the form of the game. If there's a green button on the screen, and a green button on your game controller, the form of the game is liked to the input of pressing the green button on the controller.
Like Psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist criticism can seemingly critique a game by looking solely at a its fiction. However, both of these critical modes, in relation to videogames, achieve a deeper, more profound level of analysis when the elements of interactivity between the game and player are taken into consideration. Many Marxist critics of literature believe that film, literature, art, music, and other forms of entertainment such as videogames are the primary bearers of cultural ideologies. While we’re being entertaining by these medias, our defenses are lowered making us all the more susceptible to ideological programming. A Marxist critic of videogames looks for how a game supports or condems capitalist, imperialist, or classist values. Perhaps the best and most obvious place to look toward in games is the role and function of money. Some games represent money with actual U.S. dollars or some other form of real world currency. Others use fictional currency from bell, to gil, to star bits, or even points. What the player can purchase, how these items or services function, and how the money circulates within the game world all become important areas of analysis.
The smallest degree of change needed for a change to be significant for a particular mechanic. (minimum degree of difference)
is created when player mechanics layer and/or link into resulting states that create opportunities with a higher amount of risk/reward
"New Classical criticism focuses on identifying a game's primary function/action that sums up all of the player's actions, functions, and abilities into a single expression. This expression can be thought of as the interpretation of the game or what the gamer is actually doing when he/she plays. Sometimes the primary function can be encapsulated in a single word. For example, the primary function of the Super Mario platforming series is "jump". After the primary function is identified, the New Classical critic then looks at a game's formal elements to analyze how they promote the primary function. The formal elements include Sound, Music, Art style, Story, Graphics, level design, enemies, etc. Because the New Classical critic privileges interactivity over passivity (especially when focused into a limited number of rules and actions), such a critic is only concerned with how these elements shape the gameplay experience, and assumes that any formal element in a game is only meaningful when it supports the primary function and exists in a lower state of priority to that function. In other words, elements like story can't be more stressed and more important to a game than the gameplay. Even if a game is designed according to the conventions and assumptions of Western game design, it can still be critiqued in the Classical mode."
Doesn't look at examples from the game, rather it focuses on arrangements and groupings that the researcher creates. Such an approach looks at possible scenarios than existing ones.
A type of multi-fold level design where the creases and layers are so flexible and/or dynamic that considering the possibilities within a single level are interconnected and complex. Considering the shape created from a multi-fold level is similar to observing an origami figure.
Whether a game is defined by an action or a group of actions, a small set of mechanics rests at the core of every game. This mechanic is the primary function.
For those who aren’t careful, a Psychoanalytic critique of a game appears to only be concerned with the fiction of a game and the relationship of the characters. Unless the game is Psychonauts, most games seem to have little to nothing to do with the human psyche. Neglecting how the game fiction and the gameplay (or game rules) come together to create the Psychological work in a game is a common pitfall. Another easy pitfall is to get wrapped up in Psychoanalyzing the developers of the game, or what may be infinitely more embarrassing, accidentally analyzing one’s own psychological state while trying to pass it off as an analysis of the game. Though it is true that the fiction of a game is an important part of any Psychoanalytic analysis, the gameplay is where the most profound sources of material because the interactivity of the game can influence and transform the player in more powerfully subtle ways than a passive medium.
Breaking down the range of possibilites for a game mechanic into distinct parts for the purpose of analysis.
And finally, the refining trend is one that increases consequences that force the use of mechanics in a more precise manner by adding or subtracting game elements.
The set of mechanics that do not make up the set of primary mechanics. These mechanics usually aid and help shape the primary mechanic.
All games can be broken down into sub-sections or sections. Whether a game is broken down by rooms, loading sections, cut scenes, stages, levels, rounds, or turns, if a game has a mechanic that is repeated, then it can be divided into sections.
The static distance between player and objective. Can occur when a strategy is repeated without escalation.
A static trend is where there is no change between sections, or when the changes are inconsequential because they fall short of meeting the minimum requirement for the quantified mechanic.
Structures are probably the most recognizable feature of videogames. Because structures create the foundation for the game rules and player to learn these rules, analyzing structure develops a clearer insight into how a game works at its core. We're all familiar with the structures of genre. Any gamer can instantly recognize a first person shooter like Halo from a puzzle game like Tetris. Each gaming genre has a certain look to it that is the result of the gameplay structures. Like with any genre, the degree to which the conventions are followed or deviated from varies greatly from game to game. Recognizing a game's structure is an acute way of talking about how a game works in or outside of its genre.
In counterpoint, when a game element or game idea is offset form the established pattern of game ideas to create scenarios where the element/idea can carry over and influence other game ideas.
how a game's elements influence the use of game mechanics over increasingly larger segments of the game
1 comment:
I call my game "Spoony Bard".
It takes place during the Texas revolution, and before you say I am choosing a time of action this is quite differnt. During the final leg of the Revolution there was a period called "The Great Scrape", I checked with wikipedia to be sure. This was a time when the army under Sam Hustion's lead kept up a constant retreat. His military lacked training and size. He continued towards the US boarder with the armies of Santa Anna on his heels almost constantly.
This information is learned though out the game of course. What is also learned is values of hard work, determination, and short term loss.
As the "Spoony Bard" you, the player, are tasked with 2 objectives.
1) Keeping the troops fed.
2) Keeping them marching.
Sound like suxor already? Just wait.
The mechanic involved to marching the troops is much like that used in the soon to be released game "Patapon". The Spoony Bard will be using his giant spoon and one of his pots (to start out with) to beat a marching rythem across the terain. Keeping ahead of the calvery of mexico is not the only goal. There are different rythems you can use for speed, training, and gathering.
These 3 are very important. Speed is obivouse, as you will need to keep the ones in the back from falling too far behind, thus deserting/getting lost/getting picked off by the mexican army.
Training is also important. While it lowers speed and morale it is a vital part to the long term goal of facing the mexican army some day down the road. A well trained army will march faster, gather food better, and be less likly to desert at the back of the line or in the middle of the night. Training can be overdone so a balance between all 3 is nessisary.
The third is 'gathering'. During the scrape the Texas army used a scorched earth policy, this justifies taking any food or provisions from the land or towns you cross as the military will set fire and ruin the land for those fallowing behind them after they are though. In gathering mode you will be able to get ingrediants, sometimes pursuade people to join, and move slightly faster than training mode. This plays a more important role after the march when the game switches gears into a cooking mode.
One last note on the beating of the pot while marching. It is important to keep up a rythem along with comboing marches one after another. In "Patapon" there is a fever mode that rewards 10 combo or higher of beats. In "Spoony Bard" there would be a patriot meter to gauge how inspired the troops feel by the sound of your beats. As the game progresses more complicated beats will be introduced to give the player a chance for more effective marches and but harder combos.
As noted earlier the cooking mode is also an important part of the game. While cooking you manage invintory, decide what stats you want to increase though the army by what you cook for them, as well as a portion control minigame that allows you to alot more or less to differnt troops.
It's during this mini game that you get a bulk of the story. In the serving line people love to talk and the more you give them the more you can learn from them. Some troops will talk about their familes, while others (team captians and such) will reflect on the state of the war, and even others might talk about the people they come across during the day.
Differnt story lines can be fallowed and learned baced on how well you feed the troops, how well they are trained, and how many you keep alive. A loose army that isn't fed very well will tend to complain more often than not and deprive you of story and progress. A well fed well trained army might be more focused on their patriotic duties and talk more about the war then about their lives. It might also be tempting to some players, who enjoy the NPC's, to focus mostly on feeding more than training. While they may get more story sooner in the game they would quickly suffer casualties as the dificulty of the marching stages ramps up towards the end of the game.
The key is finding a balance and in doing so, reconize how hard it was to go so long, retreating, and never seeing action. Comming soon to the nintendo DS.
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