Elements of game design, part one: from Pong to next-gen…

Well, when I think of the word gameplay, I think of how good the game is to play overall. An Oficial definition from Wikipedia is "Gameplay is interaction with a game (in particular, video games) through its rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it. So basically, it is the overall game experience, what makes a game fun or challenging to play.

Game design is the process at the beginning of a game being created. It's process consists of coming up with a game idea, designing some parts of it, test these parts to see if they work well, if they do, design and create the rest of the game. Game design can therefore be a long process if things don't work well together for example, if the characters designed don't fit with the environment. This can be quite bad if there is a tight schedule to get the game done in.

Game design is definately not a single person's responsibility. One person only has a limited number of ideas due to their cultural knowledge. Therefore, there needs to be a group of people contributing ideas and designs to being creating a game. What makes a game belong to a certain genre depends on the gameplay. This includes the camera, lighting, environment, characters, sounds, text and speed of gameplay. This means that all genres of games have pretty much the same things thrown into them but all of these aspects are designed differently. For instance, a side scrolling fighting game doesnt need much camera work but a lot of work has to be done on the environment and a RPG has to have more work done on the storyline than anything else.

When I play a video game, I find the storyline very important if it is an RPG. When i'm playing a game on my own, I want to find it entertaining. However, it doesnt really matter if it is a multiplayer game because most of the fun comes from playing it with your friends. Also, the genre of the game is very important as I dont like RPG fighting games such as DragonAge. I find it too repetitive and boring. I find it hard to play games/levels that have a timer or something chasing you, for example, Pacman. These sort of things make me sweat and my heart beat very fast and I panic waaaaay too easily. Overall I like a challenging game that has a good storyline but also has a lot of variety through the game.