What are the Design Components that are important for the Creation of casual games and how can they work together to provide a space for great User Experiences?
When it comes to the design of casual games there are a few different design components that are important to have within the game to create a great user experience. A few of these components are Pacing, Space of Possibility, pick-up and play, levels, and Time.
Pacing
Within game design "Pacing" is the concept of the over all rhythm of the game; the speed in which all the different moving parts of the game are put into motion. With the use of Mechanics, Aesthetics and Dynamics to create relaxation, tension and repetition the designer can "pace" the game. Pacing is built up of four elements which are Movement, Tension, Threat and Tempo which occur in the Lower Arch of Pacing and the Upper Arch of Pacing. According to (Venturelli 2009 p3) "Tension is the perceived danger that a player might become the weakest side on the conflict; where as Threat is the actual power of the opposing forces on the conflict".A good way to increase and decrease tension is through the use of Aesthetics; this does not work the same way for threat. The third element Movement is the desire of the player to move forward through the levels and how the player can make advancement decisions. Then the final element in pacing is the Tempo which is the time between each important decision made by the player. A Higher Tempo means that the players decision making is slow waiting for change in the game or thinking about his movement ; where as a lower Tempo represents an frantic decision making by the player. Space of Possibility
To design a game is to design a Space of Possibility's. In the words of Zimmerman and Salen (2004 cited in Venturelli 2009 p3) " It is the creation of a structure that will pay out in complex and unpredictable ways, a space of possible action that players explore as they take part in the game". In the game Assassins Creed it covers all the possible movements by using Parkour to vault over obstacles and climb buildings and well as all the fighting, swimming and so on. It is all these collection of possible actions and outcomes inside designed space of a game; which are all artificially made by the system. When we play games we are always trying to work out the patterns of it; our brains are always trying to get as much information as it can and then simplify it so it can then put it into boxes in our head. This is no different when it comes to playing games; for example the game Space Invaders . You as a player are constantly trying to work out the patterns of the enemy ships movements and the trajectory of their shots so you can figure out the best way to destroy the first row of enemies as quickly as possible.The problem with this is that if our brains work out all of the patterns and the game does not do anything to change or add to the game it runs out of surprises and becomes not fun to play and uninteresting. A example of this type of game would be Tic-Tac-Toe; with Space of Possibility very small with not many patterns that are obvious so becomes boring very quickly. Where as the game of chess has almost a infinite amount of moves and counter moves, short and long-term strategies and people from lots of different cultures have tried to master the game for centuries.Although thinking that just by giving a game more patterns will make the game a good experience is not correct. What can happen is that the player will become frustrated with a hard game because they will not be able to play it right because they are not working out the patterns that are needed by the system to advance the experience. This means that you need to get a balance between the complexity and simplicity to make a casual game.
Pick-Up and Play
A Pick-up and Play game is what you sometimes think of when you talk about Casual games. What this means is that when designing a Casual Game you must pace the experience to provide the player with the time to learn and time to play Zimmerman (2008 cited Venturelli 2009 p4). In these type of games all of the learning is done while playing the game and they do not generally have the player invest a large amount of time learning patterns.With every game that is made the designers no that eventually their patterns will be mastered completely by the players and then become boring. Although if the pattern is to hard to master then the player will become very frustrated and again the experience will end. Some of the newer games like Plants vs Zombies have started to have this new system where they have their basic patterns for the game which are very seductive but after a while like all games eventually get boring and starts and ends the seduction and experience. So what they do is just before the game loses its tempo is add in or replace some of the mechanics and patterns within the game. This then gives the game the sense of the game being impossible to stop playing. The key to this i trying to find the balance between the familiarity and the newness; this is is done by keeping the core mechanics and changing the peripheral ones.
One of the main companies that are responsible for the rebirth of these casual games is Nintendo. They are however not the only ones out there as there are many pick-up and play and family friendly games that are also on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
So in conclusion our new Casual Games are not so much a revolution but a reboot back to games like what we used to have before the AAA games we have today. This does not necessarily mean its smaller in complexity, in there mechanics or production. I have found that this very interesting and has given me a lot to think about like making sure that the game is not repetitive and introduces new mechanics fai
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