GAMES STUDIES : WEEKLY LEARNING (WEEK1-WEEK14)

 

GAMES STUDIES : WEEKLY LEARNING (WEEK1-WEEK14)

WEEK 1: 

• Module Introduction
• Lecture: Game Design Principles
• Beginning Exercise 1: My favorite video game and why it's fun

In the first week, the teacher first introduced to us the main core tasks of our game learning module, the course task arrangement (divided into individual tasks and group tasks), and our weekly course progress plan.

After introducing the module, the teacher taught the first lesson "Principles of Game Design":

Definition and core principles of game design:

Game design is the art and science of creating interactive experiences that are fun and entertaining, combining creativity, technical skills, and user psychology. Good games have engaging mechanics, gripping narratives, and balanced challenges. Its core principles include player experience, game mechanics, narrative, balance, and challenge.

Game design points:

• Player experience: Pay attention to players' emotions, immerse players in the game, design games with users at the center, consider the target audience and game style preferences, enable players to reach the "flow" state, and enrich the player experience through elements such as adventure and social interaction.

• The game mechanics are divided into primary mechanisms such as chess piece movement, dice rolling, and card drawing, as well as secondary mechanisms such as resource management, trading, and exploration. These mechanisms work together to form a feedback loop to drive the game progress.

• Narrative: Player choices affect the story, and environmental design can also tell the story. A complete narrative line includes the rising tension, climax and ending stages.

• Balance and Challenge: Reasonably set the difficulty curve, integrating skills and luck elements, giving players a sense of growth and accomplishment, and promoting the progress of the game.

Improve and optimize game design:

Continuously improve gameplay and player experience through feedback and iteration; use game testing to identify problems and make adjustments; build immersive game worlds, enhance emotional investment, and give meaning to player behavior.

Challenges of game design:

Avoid over-complexity and focus on simplicity; pay attention to player feedback and market trends, and make timely adjustments; balance profit motives and player experience.

Finally, the teacher assigned us the content of Exercise 1.

Self-reflection:

This course made me realize my shortcomings and clarified the direction of my efforts. In the future, I will strengthen my subject learning and improve my ability to integrate knowledge; communicate and collaborate more actively in the team and give full play to my own advantages; take practical activities seriously; improve my observation and analysis skills; and strive to make greater progress in my field.

WEEK 2: 

Today's class revolves around "integrating fun and education in game design." The teacher combined examples and task arrangements to lead us to sort out design ideas. The following are the key contents of the class:

Class opening: 

Next week's task arrangement and practice reminders

The teacher first reminded us, There will be no classes on campus next week. It is recommended to go out in groups to experience board games (such as in cafes and other places). Some groups have made reservations in advance, and it is recommended that we arrange as soon as possible. It is emphasized that the game process should be recorded during the experience (photographs, videos, or notes can be taken) and observe "which links make people feel interesting," "whether the rules are clear," and "how players interact." These observations will provide. inspiration. for subsequent designs. The teacher specifically mentioned that if you have your own board games, you can also organize a trial play during class time and make good use of this "free exploration time."

Game design foundation: 

Start with the "core elements."

The teacher emphasized that the basic components must be clarified before designing a game:

• If the game requires cards, cut paper to make a prototype; if a chessboard is required, draw a sketch to plan the path (such as a single line or a multi-network structure).

• Early trial play is crucial: the team can experience the prototype together, unify the understanding of the game, and find loopholes in the rules. For example, if the card effect is not clear, it can be adjusted in time during the trial play.

Core topic: 

How to make educational content "fun"?

The teacher combined psychology and cases to dismantle the strategy of "integration of fun and education":

1. Understanding "fun" from "perceptual psychology":

• Fun can be "the sense of tolerance of trial and error" (such as "Overcooked" allows players to mess up the kitchen without real risks) or "the sense of achievement of strategic choice." If educational content can be transformed into "interesting decisions" that players can operate, it can reduce boredom.

2. Examples of three major design strategies:

• Simulate real-life scenarios:

Take "Pandemic" as an example to simulate global epidemic prevention and control. Players solve problems through cooperative strategies (resource management, division of labor) and learn collaboration and decision-making in "quasi-real" situations.

"Among Us" simulates "social deception," and players naturally integrate into the rules through role-playing (murderer/survivor) and experience the fun of the strategic layer in the interaction.

• Layered experience and problem-solving:

Good games provide multi-dimensional challenges. For example, in the "Civilization" series, players as leaders need to balance "war expansion" and "resource development," and tasks of different difficulty levels meet the needs of novices and experts.

• Combination of narrative and motivation:

Use stories to package boring knowledge (such as designing "scientific principles" into "level-breaking plots") while combining intrinsic motivation (curiosity to explore new content) and extrinsic motivation (unlocking achievements, showing off on the leaderboard), such as the "card opening surprise" (intrinsic) and "displaying rare cards" (extrinsic) of Pokémon cards.

3. Balance principle: avoid "cramming knowledge."

•  Educational content needs to be naturally integrated into the game mechanism, such as "answering questions to unlock new levels" and "wrong choices triggering fun penalties" (such as the "read the rules three times" card given by the teacher) so that learning becomes a by-product of game behavior.

• Allow players to "learn progressively": The rules do not need to be complicated when they first come into contact with them. Through multiple trials, they can gradually master the strategies (such as the dialogue reasoning mechanism of "Avalon") to avoid information overload.

 Case analysis:

Looking at the design logic from classic games

The teacher disseminates the design ideas through multiple game cases:

•  "Overcooked" simulates kitchen collaboration; chaotic operations bring laughter and low failure costs and emphasize "process fun."

• "Pandemic": a cooperative board game that transforms the "disease transmission model" into a strategic challenge, and players learn teamwork in problem solving.

•  "Among Us": a social reasoning game that creates interactive tension through "identity hiding and revealing," with simple rules but high strategic depth.

• These cases all reflect the core logic of "using game mechanisms to carry educational/social goals."

End of class: subsequent tasks and resource prompts

The teacher asked us to complete the game framework by next week, and then discuss the plans of each group one by one. At the same time, the teacher provided "reward and punishment card examples" (such as "insufficient energy, unable to act" and "get extra action opportunities"), and suggested that we design some interesting mechanisms in combination with the teaching content. Finally, the teacher emphasized that action is more important than fantasy. Even a rough prototype can help discover design problems.

My class progress

This class made me realize that the key to educational games is to "transform knowledge into interactive decision points" rather than direct indoctrination. Through cases and practical tasks, the teacher guided us to start from "player experience", first clarify the core elements, and then use strategies such as simulation, narrative, and layered challenges to make the content interesting. Next, we need to implement the board game experience with the group, record observations, and try to integrate educational goals such as the "three major paths" into the game mechanism. Looking forward to the subsequent prototype mechanism. mechanism. mechanism. mechanism. mechanism. mechanism. mechanism. mechanism. development!

Week 3:

In week three, the teacher posted some information about our assignments for the week.

This week we have free time, each group will play various board games together, either in the school classroom or find a cafe with board games. Our group chose a cafe with various board games.

We were playing Monopoly. At first, we read the marks on the map carefully, but we were not familiar with the rules of the game. For example, how to distribute the initial money, props, and cards, and the rules of rolling the dice. What should I do if I roll two 6s? How many rounds do I have to stay in jail? Can I buy my way out? We tried to familiarize ourselves with the rules while playing so that we could understand them faster when we entered the Monopoly game.

I edited a video of our group playing the game.

 

We played for about two and a half hours and finally figured out our ranking for this round.

Through this game, we came up with some ideas and conclusions that can be combined with our game ideas. We had some discussions and made some divisions of labor. We will continue to update this week's thoughts and some inspirations in the link that the teacher asked us to post last week.

Week 4: 

In the fourth week, the teacher asked us to discuss our group's ideas, how to play, and the games we designed with him in class.

This Monday we had a group discussion on optimizing our PDF and making simple models for the game.

Colorful organic child psychology demonstration , author: tian dong

The problem our team ran into when making the mockup was that we made some prop card game boards, but had trouble adding events to the game board.

Finally, we finished our model and we will present our game model to the teacher on Wednesday.

In class on Wednesday, we tried out the game prototypes that our group had made and discussed our game designs with the teacher.

This is a video I recorded during class, which I edited.

The teacher gave us some feedback:

1. Game Mechanics: 

It is suggested to focus on VCD and remove unnecessary elements; to integrate glucose metabolism more closely with game mechanics and explain the process of glucose conversion into ATP; to increase game risks and avoid simple consumption and acquisition operations.

2. Card system: 

Distinguish energy cards with different functions; set up a reward and punishment card system based on the Monopoly game, and balance the number of reward and punishment cards.

3. Game balance and goals: 

Clarify the player's winning conditions and reasonably adjust the game's numerical limits; design reward and punishment mechanisms based on game goals to guide player behavior.

4. Relationship with Monopoly game: 

Delve deeper into Monopoly game mechanics, using the terms and situations discussed in class, and translate and apply them to current game designs to increase the challenge and fun of the game.

We had some discussions based on the teachers' feedback and hoped to make some improvements to our game design.

Our idea is that everyone will come up with an idea, and there will be 11 event and prop cards on the game board.

After that, we'll select the best ideas to optimize and improve the game.

Week 5: 

Today was the pre-day for each of our groups and the teacher gave us some feedback in class about our group's ideas.

Teacher feedback summary

• Focus on core concepts

It is recommended to focus on a single core concept (such as "maintaining healthy blood sugar levels") and avoid incorporating too many elements such as exercise at the same time. Exercise related content can be used as the core action design of the game (such as players completing real exercises such as push ups in the game), ensuring that the concept is directly related to the health theme.

• Refer to the framework optimization mechanism of "Monopoly"

Chessboard grid design: 

Strictly follow the grid quantity and functional zoning of Monopoly, adjust the existing layout (such as rearranging the middle grid), and use its mature probability calculation and iconic grids (such as corner grids) to enhance game stability.

Simplified Card System: Reduce the number of "Bubble Cards" (such as simplifying from 7 cards). If "forced exercise" is the core, "sport cards" can be designed (such as completing specified actions after drawing) to ensure that the card effect is directly linked to health goals (such as consuming blood sugar and obtaining health points).

• Balance innovation and classic mechanisms:

It is certain that innovative elements such as "sports actions" and "health point penalties" will be added to "Monopoly", but attention should be paid to the integration of the new mechanism with the original framework to avoid rule confusion caused by component stacking.

• Avoid interference from unrelated elements

Suggest removing content unrelated to the core theme (such as non core elements like "Black Genesis") to ensure that the game mechanics always revolve around "health management".

We need to re-optimize our model. The teacher posted the tasks for week 6 on Teams.

We already have the game model and some props for the game components, so we just need to optimize our model content.

We need to determine how many grids there are in our game board, and add some Exercise activities in the power card.

Week 6:  Pre-alpha playtest

We did some playtesting this week. The teacher posted the tasks we have to do this week (for the group).

• Prepare the game components for play-test - The physical pieces, boards, cards, dice etc.
• Handcraft the items if you can't re-use existing pre-made game pieces. BUT keep design simple and ugly!
• The most important thing is the game's rule and set-up, and informative details on the games components.
• Use the time in class today to play a round or two of your game.
• Take notes of the strengths and weaknesses of the game as you play.
• Record the gameplay session for further observation study.
• Analyze these for improvements.

We also made a video recording.

Summary

Advantage: 

• The model is very clear with complete game boards and game props. 
• The game process is very interesting, which increases the interest of the game theme and the interaction of players. 

Disadvantage and improvement: 

• Missing one belongs to our game rule book, and we can better let players know the game clearly. 

Example: 

•  Can add house widgets, because players can only get a piece of paper to show that this place belongs to the player, and the instructions are not displayed on the game board. For example, the representative color of Bunny's house is pink, so after he buys this house, it can put the pink house on the game board.

Example:

• SPEAL! There is something wrong with the power card content: Change 'a set of proposition' to 'a one property' 
• Need to change the ownership methods of Company and Restaurant.

Campany-spend glucoin to own

Restaurant-intake glucoin to own 

• Separate the Power Card: Divided into two parts 

1. Secret Power 

2. Power 

We completed the Game Mechanics Review document in class.

Game Mechanics Review.docx , author tian dong

Week 7:  Alpha Playtest

Core tasks of the class: player testing and role division 

Group division: 

Each group needs to assign 1 observer to stay behind to introduce the rules to the students who are experiencing the game (i.e., players) and answer questions, but not to participate in the game process (to avoid interfering with the objectivity of the test). For example, if the group designs a card game, the observer needs to clearly explain the card mechanism to ensure that the players experience it independently. 

 Player testing process:

• Other members experience the new games of other groups as players and fill in the "Mechanism Evaluation Form" as required, focusing on recording: 

-Whether the game duration is reasonable
 -Whether there are obstacles to understanding the rules (such as "the description of the card effect is vague") 

-Fun rating (such as "whether the interactive session is attractive") 

• After the test, the group needs to compare the self-evaluation last week with the feedback from players this week, analyze the differences (such as "I think the rules are clear, but new players generally reflect that the process is complicated"), and avoid subjective bias.

Key reminder: Constructive and objective feedback 

 -Feedback requirements: 

•  Players need to provide constructive opinions and avoid general criticism (e.g. instead of saying "the game is boring", change it to "the mission objectives are unclear, it is recommended to add a tutorial").

• Designers need to be open to opinions. Even if the feedback is sharp (e.g. "the card material is easy to confuse, it is recommended to use different colors to distinguish"), they should focus on the problem itself rather than emotions.

 -Data records: 

The game mechanism iteration record needs to be updated in the blog, including: 

• Comparison between the initial plan and the current version 
• The main problems found in this week's test (e.g. "the lack of randomness of the dice leads to unfairness")
• Improvement direction (e.g. "replace standard dice, increase probability publicity")

Subsequent plan: beta test preparation

-Timeline:

• Week 11: Beta test for students majoring in biological sciences (final version of game components must be prepared in advance).

• Week 9: Submit a game progress report, clarify the final design plan (such as determining the card style and prop function), and start material procurement (such as purchasing blank cards and custom dice on Shopee).

-Component requirements:

• Ensure that all game materials are clear and readable and reliable:

-Card text size must be suitable for reading (avoid being too small to cause inconvenience to players with presbyopia)

-Physical props (such as dice, chessboard) must undergo stress testing (such as whether the card shuffle is smooth during multiplayer games)

• Case reference:

A group was discovered by players for using "cheating dice" (rolling results tend to be biased towards specific values), and needed to re-purchase standard dice to avoid affecting the authenticity of the test.