Week 1

General Notes

• Book to note: Rules of Play by Salen & Zimmerman.

  • "The goal of successful game design is the creation of meaningful play."

• Two analogous design frameworks for games: MDA and EDE.

  • MDA: Mechanics, Dynamics, Mechanics.

    • Mechanics: Components of the game, at a data, algorithmic level.

    • Dynamics: Run time behaviour of the game, playing actions.

    • Aesthetics: The aesthetic (type of pleasure) experience, such as sensation, challenge, narrative, discovery, etc.

  • EBE: Elements, Behaviours, Experience.

    • Elements: Rules, goals, mechanics, sounds, visuals.

    • Behaviours: The way your player behaves, as encouraged by your elements.

    • Experience: The experience your player has because of the way they played.

• Semiotic terminology:

  • Denotation - When a signifier points to a signified, in a neutral, objective way.

  • Connotation - When a signifier points to more subjective meanings, relying heavily on codes.

  • Ideology - A set of ideas that influenced the conception of a perceived connotation.

  • Codes - An agreed upon set of symbols and their meanings, e.g. the code of English, or colour, accepted as a convention.

  • Polysemy - Literally "many meanings", referring to how signs have no one single fixed meaning, but may mean several (possible) things.

  • Closure - When meaning is "fixed", usually by an "anchor", just as another sign in the (con)text.

MDA breakdown

Thoughts & Prayers only has one overarching mechanic: button pressing. In the game, there are three buttons you can press: a "think" button, a "pray" button and, appearing a few seconds into the game, a "ban assault weapons sales". The game also has a thirty-second timer that ends the game once at zero. For the dynamics of the game, the game only has one objective: give as much thoughts and prayers as possible. The player can also choose not to give thoughts and prayers and instead spam the "ban assault weapons sales" button with the assumption that it'll do something at some point. 

For the aesthetics of the game, there are three aesthetics: simplicity, expression and comedy. The game is straight to the point with the message it's expressing, and does so by simplifying it into a game where you spam buttons. The message is clearly portrayed with only a 35-40 second game featuring one mechanic: pressing two buttons. The game also does this in a comedic sense by mocking the issue presented by its message.

What is the game trying to communicate, and how (well)?

The game is trying to communicate a message about the inaction of United States citizens and people of power who would give "thoughts and prayers" to those killed in or affected by mass shootings throughout the United States. For an example, in response to the Nashville shooting in March 2023, Republicans gave their thoughts and prayers, while Democrats moved to push gun control reform (Pengelly, M., 2023).

The message this game is trying to communicate is about how helpless giving thoughts and prayers in response to mass shootings is and how frustration arises from it, especially with the game's end screen that tells the player that their score resulted in 0 lives saved. I think the game does a very good job of conveying the message in a very short and simple game as it's only mechanic fully focuses on the issue brought up rather than trying to make a full-feature game for the sake of entertainment.

How could you improve it?

The simplicity of Thoughts and Prayers and how well it focuses on the presented issue makes it a hard game to build on without losing focus of the original message. The only way I can think of to improve the game would be to provide more options for the middle button instead of only "ban assault weapons sales" as, from what I've seen about the problem, the problem isn't as one-sided. I think incorporating more options such as "pass weapons ownership restrictions"—meaning to have requirements of owning a firearm such as a circumstantial gun locker requirement—would also show how complicated the problem is as that option would also be denied with the same responses as the existing button ("you don't have the votes", "that's very unamerican", etc.). 

MDA breakdown

There are a lot more mechanics in this game, which include buying and planting crops, buying livestock, buying tools, building infrastructure, buying utilities/help, encountering random events and selling items. The mechanics of this game resemble a pretty standard resource management game, however the dynamics the player will experience is vastly different from a standard resource management game due to the brutality of the costs and random events. 

The dynamics of this game include managing money and resources in the face of extreme challenges, as well as managing risks to try and minimize impact on resources, money and family as much as possible, with family being the core variable to manage as it's tied to the game's fail state (if your entire family dies, the game is over). 

The aesthetics of this game can be summarised as "challenging", "overwhelming" and "dirty". The game challenges the player by pitting them against overwhelming odds as they desperately try to manage resources and money to not lose the game, which can also be interpreted as a helplessness aesthetic. 

The game also takes place in a third world country, with a focus in the artstyle on poor livelihood in a dirty, gritty environment, which this combined with the challenging/overwhelming aesthetic could also generate a "realism" type aesthetic, where the game tries to simulate the struggles of a third world farmer while also trying to make the game fun by gamifying certain processes.

What is the game trying to communicate, and how (well)?

The game is trying to communicate the struggles that farmers living in a third-world country, specifically in select regions of Africa. The game will simulate crop failures through multiple causes such as droughts, which is a serious problem African farmers experience due to how dry their region in Africa is; as well as raids by Guerilla Forces, inspired by events such as the South Sudanese Civil War which resulted in many civilian deaths. All of these events working against the player simulate how tough it is for a farmer in Africa to sustain himself and his family.

How could you improve it?

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