Monday, September 04, 2006

For a non-excluding theory of game design

"So then what videogame designers really do is create digital worlds that invite play.

What does this theory buy game designers, or anyone else in the community for that matter? For starters, it allows us to see many of the things that folks from Callois to Crawford, Koster to Costikyan, and Bogost to Juul have variously considered essential features of videogames—things like uncertainty, conflict, fun, competition, and goals—as part of a palette of strategies for luring gamers into playing in their worlds rather than simply manipulating them."

Aaron Ruby

The quotation above is from the article A Theory of Games For Just About Everyone. It challenges the opposition between free-play and gameplay, also regarding play as a mental state, rather than an activity.

My personal, perhaps unrelated thoughts on the subject:

  • Games and non-games are two sides of the same coin: products should encourage seamless transition between the two states (a la GTA). Of course, this is just a personal opinion and a matter of taste.

  • Non-game is not a genre, but a state of play. A state of a state of mind.

    (via Raph Koster)
  • 1 comment:

    André Carita said...

    Na minha opinião, tudo aquilo que interliga os diferentes elementos presente num videojogo (seja de que género for) é a constante necessidade de procura que acaba por levar o jogador a uma determinada descoberta. Seja GTA3, ou The Movies, todos os videojogos procuram incentivar a nossa capacidade criativa propondo constantes desafios ao leitor e uma multi-lineariedade subjacente à nossa jogabilidade! Claro que uns apelam a uma maior criatividade do que outros mas o ponto mais interessante dessa análise consiste em procurar enaltecer o poder do videojogo em trabalhar constantemente com a nossa mente, num processo de negociação mental claro e contínuo.

    Um abraço!

    André Carita
    http://pensarvideojogos.blogspot.com

    Copyright, Chico Queiroz