What?

1. Paidia & Ludus

2. Costikyan Game Elements

3. Jesse Schell Game Elements

4. Randomness In Games

5. What Is Design?

Starting with two latin words to split games into two types

1. Decisions

• Gameplay is basically built around decision making and choices are made meaningfull by their consequences.

• Risk VS Reward is a clear example for making choices meaningfull such that every action has a cost.

2. Opposition

• Anything that hinders or stops the player from pursuing his goal is an opposition.

• It varies from game to game according the genre.

3. Resources

• Lack of resources or the availability of it, is a gameplay changing factor.

• Resource are cruicial element that can change the play style of a player, for example, when the player loses his weapon then he has to adjust and play stealthy rather than going on high profile.

4. Tokens

• Anything that is used to interact with the game is a token, heros, characters and even UI elements.

• Anything that the player can control.

5. Information

• The amount of information provided can also change the gameplay.

• Too much info, makes the game easy and can also make it overwhelming.

• Too little info, makes the game arbitrary.

1. Space

• The spatial element of the game can be described through the level design as a whole, that is, where the player can go and where he can't, the level of restriction and constraints that force the player to move only in certain spaces.

• Schell broke it down to Discrete and Continuous such that:

• Discrete: is well defined specific places that is available for a player, like chess grid cells.

• Continuous: An infinite number of points where the player can wander to any.

2. Objects

• Objects are as simple as any entity that has characteristics and states that change when the player interacts on them.

3. Actions

• The verbs of the game, and what the player is doing.

• Schell broke it down to Operative and Resultant:

• Operative actions such as jumping, moving and crouching.

• Resultant actions are the result of taking an operative action, such as, taking cover when crouching.

4. Skill & Chance

• Allows for variety and more possibilities to be able to simulate complicated systems, But Why?

• Putting the chance or a bit of luck makes some kind of a balanced randomness that count towards overall game system balance, so that new or unskilled players can have a chance against skilled pro players.

We discussed randomness and the effect it has on games, and that randomness is cursed just as often as it's blessed, so using randomness should be controlled. A reason for using randomness in games is to provide variety, such as roguelike games. It's also a way to balance a multiplayer game by limiting the importance of pure skill that pro skilled players use against newbies.

The two types of randomness in game design are, Input Randomness and Output Randomness:

Input Randomness: It is when random events occur before the player gets to make a decision, like the levels of a rogulike game.

Output Randomness: The mischance, which is when the player makes a decision and then luck plays its role then the game tells the player what happened and the output of it, for example, loot boxes.

Both input and output randomness should be used wisely, fine tuned until the system is balanced, such that it's not all about shear luck.

A design is a blueprint or a plan for something, that should be clear and informative about its functions.

Moving to Donald Norman's interesting thoughts about a good design which should clearly demonstrate the following:

1. Affordance

• That is the property of an object that defines its possible uses and makes it clear how it can be used.

2. Signifiers

• The aspects of an object that a designer uses to indicate a potential and intended affordances of that object.

3. Constraints

• Makes a restriction and limits what a user of that object can do through the design constrans itself.

4. Feedback

• In video games it's the called The Juice Of The Game, to make it clear to the player and give him feedback that he actually did something.

5. Mapping

• To predict what can be done by just looking and observing the object.

6. Consistency

• Being consistent is important to make the habit of using a specific object in a specific way is almost always the correct way to use it.

7. Conceptual Model

• Subconsciously precieve information or use the object in a specific way. (using inverted controls or not?)

So What?

Overall it was really interesting as always with all the activities, videos and discussions.

About Randomness:

I'm going to talk about randomness first. For me, it's the most interesting topic in today's session. I did some googling and I feel like saying that to some extend there is nothing like random that exists, not even a coin flip or a dice roll, because theoretically if we know exactly the conditions and properties of flipping that coin, that is, the exact force, the angle and other affectors that participate in particular flip or a dice roll, then we can calculate the results before it even happens!. Even some researchers built a coin flipping machines that can get the result that they want 100% of the time. The point here is that randomness is such a key factor in a game's design that should be addressed with a level of caution and wisdom, it's a two sided weapon that if used properly, it will provide the variety and/or the balance that we seek in our game, however if used poorly, consequences are just dreadful.

Game Design Approaches:

About the game design elements and different approaches that we covered, I like Schell's approach more than others, because it strikes me as a more comperhensive model and that doesn't necessarily mean that I'll ignore other approaches, because at the end of the day analysing and dissecting games with various approches is kind of an ideal experience for me.

Paidia & Ludus:

It is always good to know a bit of history and the originals of everything.

About Design:

We didnt get to talk much about what is design and how can we use the concepts of Don Norman's in game design methods, but the examples were so funny xd. 

Now What?

Now what? is so much to do in a short time.

Analysing and Dissecting games is the way to apply all these approaches and put this knowledge to use, never forget to organize the way we dissect a game.

I also really want and need to read those game design books which were highlighy recommended.