Game Elements

Week 3 Readings

This weeks readings was all about learning the vocab needed to communicate effectively as you are building a game. It mainly focused on how we can dissect games to discover how they make us like or dislike them, he showed this by explaining the FADTs of Mario. One example of this is how in Mario you have a certain amount of actions you can do and these actions always available because of this you always know what you can or can't do based on these moves, You can try and jump up to a platform and if you can't reach it you have to do something else. 

They also talk about how you can mix FADTs to achieve the kind of game you want. For example if you are making a free flowing sports game you can't create your own story, as the players actions are what really defines the story, i.e the player can't be winning a game 5-nil and then you make them take a peno which decides if they win or not as it doesn't make any sense. So therefore if you are making a free flowing sports game you won't rely on story to much but more so on stuff like Intention, i.e you want to win as much as possible and Consequence, i.e when you press a button you know what will happen.

I found the reading really interesting especially reading his analysis of super Mario. I liked how he broke Mario down and explained what made it likable and what not. Also reading his analysis of Mario and seeing how he broke it down seems like it will come in handy in future game development as I feel like I could look at games I really like and be able to deconstruct them and figure out why i like them and how to use that in games I make. 

(Image taken from Devaintart, Mario 64 Logo)