As we all know over the years the games industry has greatly evolved. Screens have been developed to have better resolution, quality and more colours. Paint and modelling tools are also up to a higher standard now along with faster audio processing and newly developed sound cards.
All games from various companies and genres have evidently been built off past ideas as we develop and learn new techniques and abilities. The aspect of design in video games however has lacked evolution and lags behind the rest of the gaming industry. Design tasks determine the players goals as well as the pacing. It assists the code, levels, putting art, sound and vision in coming together to make the game. Without design we'd just be left with "a CD full of data and no experience" which is why another shared form of language of game design is needed according to this article.
The article also talks about the issue of not having a form of language to communicate innovations and mistakes through which is where a design vocabulary would come in handy. A design vocabulary would improve people's understanding of game creation, allow the discussion of underlying game components and help people better understand how it all balances and fits together. Refinement is the medium in which design evolution occurs.
The article also uses a game example which is the Mario 64 game. In this game the player has a whole world of freedom to do whatever they want. There's a choice of worlds and which world the player wants to explore/work on, each player can decided what they're next move or task will be. As for the design of this game each of the worlds have different goals at the end which provides the player with the element of choice. Although Mario worlds are often predictable with strange goals and objectives, the player has ease of the controls as they're made to be simple. This was the most enjoyable part of the article to me as I grew up playing this game so to read about how the game has been dissected and what the gameplay consists of in professional terms was eye-opening and had me intrigued.
In the next part of the article the author discusses what a story is and defines a game story as being a narrative thread which is continued throughout the entirety of the game. As for tasks each task requires different tools to suit each individual task. The game isn't player controlled however as the designer creates "cool" moments throughout the game. Whatever the player discovers it will impact the combat aspects of a game.
A brief description and summary of a few game genres are also explored in this article. SquareSet games are in short, storybooks. In order for the player to progress in the game they must win each combat aspect as they control the fight themselves. While sports and fighting games are generally tied into 1 by the tools they contain, fighting games have a consistent controller action which is visually shown in the on-screen characters. Sports games on the other hand have the players direct and control themselves while they select an action, watch the response from their chosen action and learn from it's outcome. I thought this part of the article was very interesting as it explained what each of these genres consisted of and how they connected together with their similarities.
Finally the article dives into the aspect of tools. Tools presents the player experience that the designer had set out to create. They do this by means of a vocabulary for analysis. The aspect of game design is better understood by means of tools which also boost the player's feeling of involvement.
This article dives directly into the dept of the world of game design, the evolution of game aspects and is an example of the game design breakdown process. I enjoyed reading this article despite it being fairly lengthy. I found it to be very educational and well explained.
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