In the previous module we discussed the different kinds of play games can create for players. But to play the games, we ask more of our players than just using the actions to interact with the objects and other players inside a playspace. Game designers, particularly videogame designers, need to understand a little bit about cognition, a little about hand-eye coordination, a little bit about information and interface design, and a slew of other topics that help them design for people.

As game designers work, they need to keep in mind what the interface designer Jef Raskin called “human frailties,” or an understanding of the limits of what people can and cannot do, and what people are and aren’t good at. This includes things like how players perceive the playspace, how much information the game provides and how players process this information, how challenge keeps them playing and developing their skills, and how the game’s context impacts a player’s experience such as where the game is and who is playing and watching.

Macklin, Colleen; Sharp, John. Games, Design and Play (Game Design) (p. 78). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Action theory is a sociological concept originated by Talcott Parsons as a way to understand the dynamics of what happens when people encounter a given situation. Action theory proposes the following cycle of interaction:

Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, 1937. Macklin, Colleen; Sharp, John. Games, Design and Play (Game Design) (p. 78). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

• Beliefs: Prior experiences or beliefs.
• Reaction: Encounter a situation and we form a reaction.
• Desire: Reaction leads to desire.
• Intention: Desire leads to the formation of a plan of action.
• Action: With intention the player enacts the plan.
• Repeat: With the cycle complete the cycle repeats.

Sensory (the surface): What the player sees, hears, feels, smells, and tastes when playing the game.

Let’s start with one of the more often-used components of videogames: the player’s point of view.

• First person-perspective
• Third person-perspective
• Top-down
• 2D side view
• more...

Just as important is how the world is represented. Is it with super-simple graphics pared down to a few pixels? Or is it hyper-realistic, with every shadow and texture defined and refined? Or is it a game that uses no images at all, but simply text or sound?

Exploring senses within games brings into the conversation concepts of immersiveness. A game being immersive doesn't necessarily deal with senses, but let's focus on that part for now. So much of a players experience depends on the designers enrapture of the players senses. Visual is the obvious one, but not enough. Sound is a huge addition wether it is sound effects or music. Most games don't involve touch, taste or smell, but with the modern adoption of VR additional senses are increasing. Touch, Spacial Audio are hugely important and even Smell is being explored.

This leads to questions designers might ask about player point of view and perception to guide their work: How do you want your player to take in information about the game world? And how does this relate to the player’s experience of the world itself?

Information (the skeleton): Within the sensory layer, the information the player discerns about the game. There is a difference between sensing and understanding. You cannot assume that a stimulation of one of your players senses will result in them understanding that stimulus the way you intend, or what to do about that stimulus, if anything. Quite frankly, there is a strong possibility that many of you aren't even reading this sentence now even though I have written, instructed, and are examining whether you have or not. If you are reading this, this is the answer to the exam question (sandwich). If you aren't, well that question is going to be very confusing indeed :-)

Reflexive attention is from the back and side regions of the brain and is activated when loud noises, quickly moving objects, or anything novel is presented to us. Executive attention (sometimes called voluntary attention) refers to those things that we decide to pay attention to, such as looking at a health meter, for instance, or reading a sign in the road. Together, they help us understand the kinds of attention we are asking the player to give our game and how to keep track of the number of things we are asking our players to pay attention to.

Macklin, Colleen; Sharp, John. Games, Design and Play (Game Design) (p. 86). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Too much or too little data can lead to information overload which can lead to a lack of knowledge and a difficulty gaining wisdom. Assumptions never work and your intuition isn't as good as you think it is. It's not worthless, but it's not enough. You MUST do play testing, and as much of it as you can to hope to be successful.

Interaction (the structure): Given the sensory layer and the information, what the player understands they can do while playing the game. There is often a gap between how something actually works and how players think it works. This runs the gamut from actions, objects, the boundaries of a playspace, and, most importantly, how broad and deep players understand the space of possibility of the game to be.

When a player first plays a game, they are working off prior knowledge to help them interpret the information space. As they continue to play, they slowly develop a more specific understanding of your game until they are working off the information from their prior experiences in the game to develop their understanding of the game’s space of possibility.

Requiring too much of a player from the very beginning can turn off player interest very early. This relates back to many of our different kinds of play, but especially skill-based. You have to build up the skills and the only way to do that is with players practicing.

Once a player understands what they are engaging with, they have to understand their role in the game and how they enact it. This takes us to affordances, an important concept in cognetics. As Donald Norman defines them, affordances are “the perceived properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used."

• perceptible affordances: We see a tool with a handle, and we assume we can grip it. We see a book, and we assume we can read it.
• hidden affordances: In Mario Brothers you wouldn’t know a brick up in the air could be hit in order to release a coin, but it will, sometimes.
• false affordances: Misinterpretations of what an object can do. We see a wax apple and think we might be able to eat it; we see a door in a 3D game but cannot open it.

Affordances come with pre-conceived ideas of interaction based on previous kinds of play that are similar. Providing affordances is how you train your players to know how to play your game. They are also ways to frustrate your users if you take too many leaps too quickly, or worse, are inconsistent.

Additional concepts:

• Clear Mental Model
• Feedback
• Navigability
• Consistency

Just because we can see and hear a game, can make sense of the information it is presenting us, and can determine an action we want to perform doesn’t mean we’ll perform it well. Failure on some level is inevitable and it should be utilized as a tool for play experience to suit your goals and kind of play.

• Use failure as a teacher
• Encourage failure to increase determination
• Use failure to inform

Frame (the scope): The player’s understanding of the game’s space of possibility informed by their experiences as a player and more broadly as a person. All the time living, leading up to playing a game, creates a frame around how players perceive, experience, and build understanding. If someone has never played a videogame before, they might need some help understanding the basics of how videogames work. If a player sees a large anvil poised on the edge of a cliff, they might imagine that it could fall and crush whatever happens to get under it. This could come from their experiences in life with heavy anvils or their mediated experiences of falling anvils depicted in Saturday morning cartoons. Frames of reference for deciphering what the game is asking of players come from a variety of places: daily life, movies and television, books and stories, and, of course, games. In addition to understanding the basic physics of a precarious anvil, these frames might come from the player’s own values, philosophies, and cultural contexts to help them interpret the information the game is giving them.
Macklin, Colleen; Sharp, John. Games, Design and Play (Game Design) (pp. 96-97). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

• You can utilize existing frames in culture to progress the play experience
• You can purposefully augment frames to serve the purposes of play experience.

Again... be careful of assumptions.

Purpose (the strategy): The player’s goals for the game. Why has the player decided to play this game? What do they hope to get from it? And what do they actually get from it? Players bring all sorts of intentions to their play experiences.

The game designer Richard Bartle looked closely at players of early text-based multiplayer adventure games (called MUDs, or Multi-User Dungeons) to come up with four core player types: achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers.

Macklin, Colleen; Sharp, John. Games, Design and Play (Game Design) (p. 99). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

• Achievers: are interested in setting and obtaining goals (sometimes intended, sometimes their own) in a game.
• Explorers: like to understand the full breadth of a game's space of possibility
• Socializers: are less interested in the actions and objects unto themselves than they are the other players.
• Killers: like to impose their will on other players.

Of course not all players fit neatly into these 4 categories, nor will they trend toward one or another the same way, in every game, or all of the time. Furthermore some kinds of play and specific game designs could encourage, allow, or discourage any of these player types by design.

1For this assignment first choose ONE of the following options to explore.

1. Choose a videogame and imagine what would happen if you changed the player point of view. If it’s top down, how would the gameplay differ if it was side-view? 2D to 3D?
2. Pick a game and consider the mental model you have for how the game is played.
3. Watch people playing a challenging game. Create a log of all the moments of failure that happen. Categorize each instance of failure as either individual flaw, flaw in the game, or circumstantial flaw.
4. Pick a multiplayer game you like to play. Play it four times, each time modeling one of four player types (achiever, explorer, socializer, killer).

2 Utilize what we have learned in this class to-date (elements, systems thinking, design tools, kinds of play) to outline your response

3 Record a short presentation video of yourself providing your response for the chosen game exploration option. Make sure you include terms from what we have learned so far (see step 2 above), and be clear and concise. Try to keep your video to between 3 and 5 minutes.

5 Make sure your movie file is MPEG4 preferably with h264 codec. Most mobile phones encode this way by default so those files are fine the way they are. If you use a dedicated video camera please google how to export those formats form your chosen video editing software.

6 Name your video file with Lastname-Firstname_GameKind_Assignment5.mp4. Could be .mov if you format as quicktime with h264. So .mov and .mp4 are good extensions as long as you compress. Your file sizes shouldn't be massive.

7 Click on Assignment 5 in the UNM Canvas Assignments listing.

8 Scroll down to Assignment Files and Browse Local file to select the file you created and attach it to your submission for this assignment.

As always, please make sure you also complete the other requirements in your todo list like discussion post and quiz. Don't forget those. Pay special attention to the fact that this week is our first Section Exam which will cover material from this module as well as the first 4 modules of the course.