Report By Shwela Sharma
“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.”- A famous quote by Michael Jordan, which pretty much implies to every game in the world.
 |
| Game Design Session-Rohit Gupta |
A reason why the term “Game Design” came into existence was the question – how to make a game “fun”? It was an hour’s session, beautifully planned to make Pune's gamers understand the concept of Game Design. It might be easy to play a game and give a verdict whether or not, the game was worth playing. But, when it comes to making a game, it takes an expert’s eye to design it; keeping in mind the needs of the end-user the players.
Rohit, who has a high selling game (175000 downloads on Apple I-Tunes) of Touch Squash to his credit that he made for iPhone, said that the real essence of game is designing. Without that, a game is full of data but no interaction. Beautiful graphics may target eyes, or beautiful sounds may target ears; but, a game design targets the entire nervous system. it is what we feel like when we play a game, the Joy, Anger, Excitement, energy, the win & lose situations & the ability to score. Rohit also mentioned a new language of game design – MDA, which would be lingua franca amongst game designers across the world.As of now in India we still have not progressed to understanding games , so far we have been only building part of games. But with MDA driven process we will be able to evaluate existing games to make better games.This is how it is being done in most game devloping countries.
MDA – Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics, dissects the entire game under three categories essentially - Objects and Rules, Behaviour and Experience/Emotions. These terminologies are for better understanding of any game. Mechanics (Objects & Rules) are particular components of the game at the level of data representation and algorithms.
Dynamics (Behaviour) are the run time behavior of the mechanics acting on the player inputs and each other’s outputs.
Aesthetics (Experience) are desirable emotional responses evoked in the player while interacting with the game system.
When it comes to designing, a designer needs to define fun. Research says that there are around 8 kinds of fun that can be defined:
1. Sensation – Games as sense pleasure
2. Fantasy – Games as make-believe
3. Narrative – Games as drama
4. Challenge – Games as obstacle
5. Fellowship – Games as social framework
6. Discovery – Games as uncharted territory
7. Experience – Games as self-discovery
8. Submission – Games as pastime
Also, there are tools defined that help build a game design. That’s called Formal Abstract Design Tools (FADT). It’s basically a common sense that one requires. But, these can also be defined in technical terms as:
Intention: How to keep a player invested to the game?
Perceived Consequence: How should a game react to player’s actions?
Story: How should a game go forward – should it be player-driven or designer-driven?
In short, it is the rules on which a game can be developed, in way the comoon sense of making good games.
These obscure terms may now come to light as Rolocule studios and Seamedu-Id Animation & Arts institute come together with such sessions which give insight to the real game-making world. It was a great initiative and a well-managed session, and I am looking forward to more of these in future. Enjoy
