What gameplay is can vary.
According to the almighty Wikipedia, gameplay is ‘everything that the player experiences when playing the game’. Ergo, gameplay means…everything…
But there are a few different things we can go into detail about.
To me, gameplay always meant the control system or at least it’s what specifically sprang to mind but I agree that it is a multitude of factors.
Fable 2 has a system in place which will visually change the players appearance based what they do in the game, although it is still linear no matter how many choices you have to make.
Mirror’s Edge doesn’t require you to kill anyone and most of the time it persuades you to run away. First time playing this game on the second level you have to out run a SWAT team (again), I didn’t know the building and had about 3 seconds to get moving before screen went gray and I dropped to the floor. Because that’s what Faith (the character) does when she dies, and the only way to tell is to gage how desaturated her view becomes. I got my first adrenaline rush for years when playing that level, bolting over railings and down glass roofs. Which was a positive experience.
Rock Band is the other brother to Guitar Hero and has mostly identical controls, when I finally nailed Muse’s Hysteria to the point of 99% correct I felt like a rock god! I think this is down to the controls, when playing Rock Band on a standard gamepad it is nowhere near as fun and not half the experience.
I still find it hard to nail down what gameplay is.
I think it can be both incorporated and something unintended, but it changes based on what the game or genre is.
Showing posts with label gameplay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gameplay. Show all posts
Monday, 15 December 2008
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Leading Lights
When I play a game, what’s important to me does vary depending on what genre the game is.
For example, the story is of the highest priority when playing RPGs and so the characters are as well.
FPSs or any other shooter really, I feel that gameplay and controls are the most important. For me, bad or fiddly controls can really put me off a game. An experience of bad controls happened recently while trying to play the PC version of Assassin’s Creed left me with my head lying defeated in front of the keyboard.
One thing that will always grab my attention is how a game looks though, if it’s visually appealing I will always give it more time.
Gameplay means the players interaction and experiences with the game itself. I think it could mean things like whether the game is repetitive, how the battle system (if any) handles etc.
From what I’ve learned, the game design team can be comprised of ‘Game Mechanics, Visual Arts, Programming, Production Process, Audio and Narrative. Some games however like Tetris and Bejeweled have no Narrative.
However, it is the Game Designer who writes the design document which can be good or bad and comes in many different forms depending on what the designer is like.
Staff from the different branches of the design team tree will refer back to this document but it is ultimately up to the Game Designer to keep the document ‘living’.
As I mentioned before, Tetris does not have a Narrative and so there is no reason to have this in the design document. The same can be said for some racing games as well.
For Games Designers, I think that I consider them successful if they make a popular game which sells well but I also like innovative games too. Some of which I believe are; Hironobu Sakaguchi, Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Marc Loudlaw, Michel Ancel, Cliff Bleszinski, Paul Cross, Owen O’Brien, David Jaffe, Peter Molyneux, Shinji Mikami, Alex Pajitnov, Ken Rolston, Toshihiro Nishikado…just to name a few.
When I think about buying a game I usually don’t look at who worked on it because I feel that it may alienate new designers and developers. However, after a bad experience with RPGs for the 360, Enchanted Arms made me skeptical of anything. So when I learned of Hironobu Sakaguchi ‘s new company Mistwalker Studios’ new attempt called Lost Odyssey I tried it and loved it. Admittedly I detest Blue Dragon but the point I’m trying to make is that who designed it etc. isn’t vital but it helps.
For example, the story is of the highest priority when playing RPGs and so the characters are as well.
FPSs or any other shooter really, I feel that gameplay and controls are the most important. For me, bad or fiddly controls can really put me off a game. An experience of bad controls happened recently while trying to play the PC version of Assassin’s Creed left me with my head lying defeated in front of the keyboard.
One thing that will always grab my attention is how a game looks though, if it’s visually appealing I will always give it more time.
Gameplay means the players interaction and experiences with the game itself. I think it could mean things like whether the game is repetitive, how the battle system (if any) handles etc.
From what I’ve learned, the game design team can be comprised of ‘Game Mechanics, Visual Arts, Programming, Production Process, Audio and Narrative. Some games however like Tetris and Bejeweled have no Narrative.
However, it is the Game Designer who writes the design document which can be good or bad and comes in many different forms depending on what the designer is like.
Staff from the different branches of the design team tree will refer back to this document but it is ultimately up to the Game Designer to keep the document ‘living’.
As I mentioned before, Tetris does not have a Narrative and so there is no reason to have this in the design document. The same can be said for some racing games as well.
For Games Designers, I think that I consider them successful if they make a popular game which sells well but I also like innovative games too. Some of which I believe are; Hironobu Sakaguchi, Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Marc Loudlaw, Michel Ancel, Cliff Bleszinski, Paul Cross, Owen O’Brien, David Jaffe, Peter Molyneux, Shinji Mikami, Alex Pajitnov, Ken Rolston, Toshihiro Nishikado…just to name a few.
When I think about buying a game I usually don’t look at who worked on it because I feel that it may alienate new designers and developers. However, after a bad experience with RPGs for the 360, Enchanted Arms made me skeptical of anything. So when I learned of Hironobu Sakaguchi ‘s new company Mistwalker Studios’ new attempt called Lost Odyssey I tried it and loved it. Admittedly I detest Blue Dragon but the point I’m trying to make is that who designed it etc. isn’t vital but it helps.
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