Week 1

At the beginning of the lesson, we held a class discussion about the games we have all been playing lately. I did, unfortunately, miss the first little bit as I struggled to get my Learning Journal set up and headphones connected to the computer, but eventually I was able to participate. I think having a scrum like that is a really good way of discovering games that I probably wouldn't have otherwise known about, and it could be interesting way to hear reviews of games that I want to play. We also did a brief ice-breaker activity in pairs, and it was nice to get to know the rest of the class a little but without having to do the traditional go-round-in-a-circle thing. 

Having gone through general introductions, we learned about Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics (MDA) in game design. Altogether, MDA is a method of analysing games. Mechanics are the actions that players can take, and the rules that are followed by both the player and the system itself (Sicart, 2008). A dynamic is a rule or process that builds on a mechanic to further the player's engagement in the game (ALA Tech Source, 2015). An aesthetic is the specific experience the player has during the game, and the way the developer wants them to feel (Hunicke, 2004). 

To put this new knowledge into practice, we analysed two video clips of game walkthroughs. The first was a snippet of Bayonetta 1 (Shirrako, 2020, 00:20:31), in which the class identified several mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics present. The other was a section of the horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (P.B. Horror Gaming, 2016, 00:48:31), where we were able to do the same. I'm having some difficulty understanding the MDA in black and white, but it should come with practice. 

• what can the player do? 

• How does that interact in the context of the game world? 

• How do these make the player feel 

1. mechanic is... 

   1. what it can be used for (dynamic)

   2. how does it make the player feel to use that dynamic (aesthetic) 

2. mechanic is... 

That exercise made me wonder about the psychology behind horror games and what makes them so intriguing. I'd be interested to know what makes a game scary, and how to develop that kind of emotional response from a player in a game of my own creation someday.