Games Decisions

Source

In this weeks reading was all about the flow in game design and it also talked about what kind of decisions game developers have to make to keep their games interesting and keep players engaged in what they're playing.

This article talks about all of the learning curves when creating a game and what kind of games are most likely to have more engaging audiences. After reading through it, it seems that games that are fun and have goals are usually the kind of games that people will be more likely to play. People won't want to play a game that has no definite ending or no rules to be able to get to that ending, they will end up getting bored quite easily and click off the game.

After reading that article, I watched this video by Game Design with Michael. He talks about what flow theory is in game design. In summary, he says that flow is a theory about making games challenging and engaging and also matching different skills to the players playing level. The game should match a players skills but also exceed them a little bit sometimes to challenge the player to go outside of their skill level and also keep the player engaged because of this challenge. 

Lastly I read this article  on decisions and decision making. They talk about how when making games were constantly having to make decisions, we analyse our games to pay attention to what kind of decisions players have to make throughout and why they have to make these decisions. When you remove decisions from a game, you don't really have a game, you have more of a sequence of scenes that a player has to follow to get to the end. The fun and excitement of a game comes from the thrill of having to make a decision to get to the end point, it's what keeps players engaged and makes the game more fun.

Bibliography:  

Building a Princess Saving App (PDF), by Dan Cook

What is FLOW THEORY in game design? (Video) by Gigity McD

Decisions! Decisions! (Article) Unknown