Computer Games - Vocabulary and Tools

We're half way through the 1st semester, week 6 started this Monday. In the readings we had to... read until now for Rob's module, each author, or authors, wrote about how we should look upon games from a designer's point of view, what vocabulary is appropriate and what tools are the best to use in trying to design a good game. I'll write about this readings in this post and my opinion on them.

So starting with Greg Costikyan's article "I Have No Words & I Must Design : Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games".  
As the title goes, we are first introduced to what this article is about, and that is the creating of a general vocabulary for Games Design and coming up with a coherent definition for what a games is.
He starts his article talking about how games designers don't have an eligible vocabulary when it comes to talking about or analysing a game. But only have very vague or general terms on how we asses games : "good gameplay", "bad gameplay".  And I have to say I totally agree with him. Taking into consideration that terms like "good" and "bad" are as personal and subjective as terms can get, it's impossible to talk about games on a common ground. I learned that as a games designer you have to be able to look at a game from an objective point of view. By doing this you'll be able to properly analyse it and maybe reiterating it.

But to be able to have a vocabulary, you must first be able to define the object of study for which you create a vocabulary. And that would mean defining what a game is. And by defining a game, you have to know what makes a game.

He first talks about interaction and goals and calls in information from "Art of Computer Games Design - Chris Crawford (1982)". Chris Crawford talks about separating puzzles from what he calls games on the fact that puzzles are static and don't imply a direct form of interaction with the player, unlike games who change with every action the player does. Here Costikyan states that not all puzzles are like that. Of course there are puzzles like a crossword, which is just that, a puzzle because it has no true interaction with the person completing it, and any decision taken may never affect the outcome or the "path". Whereas many puzzles are part of games. We've all played puzzle-adventure games. One of my favourite is "Syberia", both the first and second game, a game whose sole objective is the solution of puzzles to get to the end of a mystery. Thus the winning condition is a consequence of puzzle solving.

If you look closely enough you can see that every game has some degree of puzzle solving. You can't separate puzzles from games entirely because they consist of a major part in user-game interaction. Always this puzzle solving tend to lead to a goal, most games having an explicit win condition.
But to reach this goal and truly have a "fun" element in your game, the player has to experience some kind of struggle. This is required to make the user feel like he has a major role in the story and that all the puzzle solving and decision making he had to put up, gather towards a finish. The huge variety of games found on the market deliver a lot of types of goals: straight to the point goals, vague goals, multiple goals or user-made up goals.
But all of this has to be included in a structure. Interaction of the games own rules, components and software help create a structure in which people can play. It helps to think of a structure as an ecosystem, a complex, interacting system that does not dictate outcomes, but guides behaviour through the need of achieving a single goal.

And so we get to the first part of Costikyan's definition of games : "A game is an interactive structure that requires players to struggle towards goals".

Following this line of thought, we can notice that a game structure creates it's own meanings within itself . That which is caused by factors inside the system and gains importance within the structure is endogenous to the structure. And so we get to the next component of a game : Endogenous meaning. 


We should first start talking about the fact that a game belongs to fantasy, not reality. Everything that takes place in the game world has value only there. And this is where endogenous meaning takes it's place in the components that are required to make a game. It represents something that has meaning only in the game world and if tried to bring out of the game world it would have no meaning. "Monopoly" money have value only during the game. Take them to the market and try to buy something and the salesman might just politely point out to you that the 100$ note you gave him has no value

. Another example would be found let's say in an MMORPG. Taking "WoW", let's say I've worked my fingers to the bone, levelling up a BloodElf mage, bringing it up to, let's say level 80. And then I get bored of it. So I make a new one and sell this one for either gold coins in the game, or real money. Either way, at this point, I have great prospects and I'm sure I'll get my money. But then I wake up the next morning and suddenly "WoW" does not work any more. The game just crashed forever. Thus the character I've put up on the internet with the hope of earning something of it, has lost it's value. It's just a character drawing. This is what endogenous meaning means. This also applies to game mechanics and dynamic, because if I say "Wingardium Laviosa" while pointing a stick at my sofa, it won't suddenly start floating around the room like in "Harry Potter" (the game)... (or the movie)... ^_^

But this can, if used properly, can work both ways. This way real elements and happenings in real life can be given endogenous meaning in games that re-contextualize reality in a game. Taking the "Age of Empires" series as example, the game starts on the basis of military campaigns in Europe, Asia , Africa and later the American continent, dating from the Ancient Roman Empire, to the Mongol Invasion, Medieval wars, Colonial wars, Spanish conquering of Central and South America and early Modern age. This game starts from real facts but let's the player decide the outcome of the fights, being able to alter history while in the game world. This way Napoleon might just conquer the whole of Europe.

And so we might just say that we've covered the whole of Greg Costikyan's game definition : "A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meanings that requires players to struggle towards goals". 

But he covers two more aspects in his article, those being the categorising of games as "Interactive Entertainment"  and includes Marc LeBlanc's taxonomy of game pleasures.

So once we've looked upon this definition, we should ask ourselves : If games are a form of interactive entertainment, what else goes in this category? Costikyan explains very succinctly that only games should be deemed as " Interactive Entertainment"  due to the fact that, to be a form of interactive entertainment, you require both a structure and an endogenous meaning. The form of interactive entertainment must contextualize itself and must provide meaning that makes sense in the context shown. To be part of the "Interactive Entertainment"  the product must prove to be a form of entertainment, that requires people to actively interact with it towards the achievement of a goal, and as far as Costikyan goes, only games fulfil all this requirements simultaneously.

Now that a definition for games has been brought up on stage, a definition which brings insight to what is required to create a compelling game, it's good to about what people do enjoy about a game. What makes that game tick for them. And here we get to the one part that I think is one of the most important, a taxonomy, in this case: LeBlanc's taxonomy of game pleasures. Why do I think this is one of the most important parts to take into consideration  when making a game? Because I believe that one of the most important thing is knowing what your audience expects of you. This is backed up by a paragraph in "Beginning Game Level Design" by John Field and Marc Scattergood, which I recently started reading. It goes something like: "They (the games designers) loose sight of the core fundamental which is that games are about one thing, entertaining people. This is the first and most important thing to think about when you're making any kind of game, whether is a teensy mod or a huge, 250-hour RPG. In making a game you become an entertainer, not a puppet master bent on world domination. As such your primary concern should be the happiness of your audience. You have to make your game fun." (2005, pg2).

In his taxonomy, LeBlanc brings forward 8 elemnets:

• Sensation : which is provided by good video and audio, but also tactile sensation and for some games even muscle pleasure, like in sports games or dance games ("Dance Dance Revoution"). But even though video and audio elements, which are the most commonly used to achieve sensory pleasure, they must not be seen as the main component of the game, because they might just be a way to hide a dull game behind beautification aspects. 
• Fantasy :  And by this he doesn't just mean let loose the orcs and elves and wobbly mages  in the midst of human civilization. But setting the game in a time and place which does not belong in reality. And if this means creating a whole new universe in which your game would take place, with it's mandatory elvish-gibberish-made-up language and a whole new history that dates back to the fall of the Gods and goes all the way to the creation of the steam-punk toothbrush, you'd better start writing.
• Narrative : As we all know a good game has also a good story, and a good story is mandatory for keeping a player immersed in the game world; be it your usual A through Climax to get to B story, or a user made-up story such as in D&D. But narrative doesn't mean just attachment to a story, it means creating a sense of drama in your game, going through tension building, then a climax and finishing with a sense of accomplishment. 
• Challenge : Which could be considered Costikyan's equivalent for struggle. This is viewed as a must in every game, because games might just be able to limp around without graphics of fantasy or narrative, but a player who will not encounter any challenge while playing the game, then they will just throw it away in a dark corner and let the dust settle on it. 
• Fellowship : This is close, if not exactly what players experience while playing an online game. More generally, shared intense experiences breed a sense of fellowship. For gamers, it’s often the games they've  played. Even offline, where the experience is not shared directly, shared experiences provide points of contact with other people, and reasons to feel friendly toward them.
• Discovery : This relates to both the discovery of the hidden game world, and the reveal of information from one player to the other. Like in playing "Poker", "Blind Dice" or I would say "Magic: The Gathering" would be a very good example, because there are so many different Magic cards that if you play a lot, you’re always encountering one you hadn't seen before or hadn't battled against it before.
• Expression: By this LeBlanc refers to self-expression through game. Be it the construction of your character in an RPG, the construction of your sims in "The Sims", or of your own world in "Spore", you add a little bit, or a little bit more of your looks or personality to the game, thus transforming it into a way of self-expression and also becoming more familiar with your game.
• Masochism : This last one is the one I find the oddest of them all, because it refers to pleasure derived from pain. But then, if you think again it might refer to the inhumanly number of hours spent playing a game, depriving yourself of basic needs, just to level-up your character, or discover a new area or carrying on with a game of D&D late into the night/early into the morning. I'm sure everyone of us has gone through one of this forms of self-torture just for the sake of doing better in the game and this is what I believe LeBlanc was referring  to when he added this to the list. 

                "One of the most difficult tasks people can perform, 

how ever much someone may 

despise it 

is the invention of good games"