Esta es una traducción al español del artículo titulado Level 8: Kinds of Fun, Kinds of Players publicado en el blog Game Design Concepts.

 

Nivel 8: Tipos de Diversión, Tipos de Jugadores

Por ai864 (Traducción por Ciro Durán)

 

El lunes descubrimos que la "diversión" es solamente otra palabra para "aprendizaje" y que poner a los jugadores en un estado de flujo es de donde viene esta elusiva "diversión". Hoy profundizamos sobre este concepto para aprender más sobre la "diversión", metiéndonos en el "8 kinds of fun" de LeBlanc y otros y relacionando ello de vuelta a la teoría del flujo y demás cosas.

 

Actualmente tenemos una idea de qué es divertido, pero nos ayudaría saber por qué estas cosas son divertidas. ¿Qué tal si hubiesen nuevas maneras de divertirse esperando a ser descubiertas?

 

Anuncios del curso

 

Estaré en Protospiel este fin de semana, así que probablemente esté lento en la respuesta a los correos y validando cuentas de foros. Asímismo, la lección del próximo lunes puede que se tarde un poco, dependiendo de cómo esté al regreso.

 

Resultados del Mini-reto

 

He aquí una pequeña selección de las respuestas al mini-reto de la última vez (proponer un cambio de reglas que agregue decisiones interesantes a Trivial Pursuit):

 

• Answering player hears all six questions on the card, then predicts the number they’ll get right. If they don’t overestimate how many they’ll get right, they get N points (where N is the number of correct answers); otherwise they get nothing. Presumably, players play to a total score rather than moving around the board. This decision is interesting when the player is not entirely sure whether an answer is correct, and they must choose their level of risk (based on how certain they are and their relative score).

 

• After earning a wedge, you can choose to keep answering additional questions on the card for additional wedges (or additional turns), but if you miss one then you lose all of the ones you’ve earned that turn. An interesting push-your-luck mechanic.
• Instead of rolling to move, a player can attempt to answer a question of the color of a nearby space (anywhere within 6 spaces) to move there. If they fail, they do not move. Another risk/reward mechanic, where you risk completely wasting your turn in exchange for more precise movement.
• Once per turn, you can force another player to answer a question for you after hearing it. If they get it wrong, your turn continues; if they get it right, your turn ends. Reminiscent of “You Don’t Know Jack.”
• You can get more than one wedge of the same color. You may trade with opponents at any time.
• You read your own question. After looking at the answer, if you are incorrect, you can bluff and claim you were correct anyway. If no one else challenges you, then proceed as if you had answered correctly. If you are challenged… well, the original tweet didn’t specify, but presumably the winner of the challenge gains something and the loser loses something. I’d recommend, loser of a challenge loses their next turn, and if the challenger was correct it immediately becomes their turn (possibly skipping other players in the process). 

 

Lecturas

 

Lee lo siguiente:

• Natural Funativity, por Noah falstein. Hemos hablado mucho acerca de lo que es divertido, y del Framework MDA sabemos que hay diferentes tipos de diversión. Pero por qué son estas cosas divertidas en primer lugar, y no otras? Noah provee una teoría útil.
• Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs, por Richard Bartle. Si eres muy joven para saber lo que es un MUD, es básciamente un precursor al MMO de hoy. Reemplaza la palabra "MUD" con "World of Warcraft" y mantendrá perfecto sentido.
• Puedes encontrar útil revisar el MDA Framework, específicamente la parte que hablar acerca de los 8 tipos de diversión. 

 

Tipos de diversión

 

Podrás recordar del MDA Framework que los autores listaron 8 tipos de diversión. Estos son:

 

• Sensación. Los juegos involucran directamente a los sentidos. Considera los gráficos bonitos o el audio impresionante de los videojuegos; la sensación táctil de las carreteras y casa de madera en Los Colonos de Catan; o el movimiento físico involucrado en los deportes, Dance Dance Revolution, o cualquier juego en el Nintendo Wii.
• Fantasía. Los juegos pueden proveer un mundo imaginario (que algunos lo llaman cínicamente "escapismo") que es más interesante que el mundo real.
• Narrativa.  Como lo mencionamos anteriormente, los juegos pueden involucrar historias, ya sea de las embebidas que los diseñadores han puesto, o de las emergentes que son creadas por el jugador.
• Reto.  Algunos juegos, particularmente los juegos arcade retro, deportes profesionales, y algunos juegos de mesa altamente competitivos, como el Ajedrez o el Go, derivan su diversión en gran parte de la emoción de la competición. Incluso juegos de un solo jugador como Buscaminas o actividades como el montañismo son divertidas principalmente porque se tratan de sobreponerse a un reto difícil.
• Camaradería.  Muchos juegos tienen un componente altamente social a llos. Creo que es esto solo lo que permite que muchos juegos de mesa norteamericanos, como Monopolio, continúen vendiendo tantas copias por año, a pesar de las decisiones poco interesantes y mecánicas aburridas. No es tanto del juego, sino las interacciones sociales con la familia, que la gente recuerda con tanto cariño de su infancia.
• Descubrimiento.  Esto es raro en juegos de mesa, pero puede ser encontrado en juegos como Tikal y Entdecker. Se encuentra más comúnmente en juegos de aventura y de rol, particularmente juegos en la serie Zelda y Metroid.
• Expresión.  Por eso, pienso que los autores de MDA quisieron decir la habilidad de expresarte a través de la jugabilidad. Ejemplos incluyen juegos como las charadas o Poker en la manera que actúas es al menos tan importante como otras acciones que tomas dentro del juego; Dungeos & Dragons (Calabozos y Dragones en español) donde el personaje que creas es en gran parte una expresión de su propia idea personal; o mundos abiertos y juegos tipo sim como Los Sims o Grand Theft Auto u Oblivion o Fable, los cuales están en gran parte concentrados en ofrecer al jugador las herramientas necesarias para que creen su propia experiencia personalizada.
• Sumisión.  Un nombre que suele hacer que mis estudiantes se rían con sus mentes sucias, pero me refiero a juegos como un hobby sostenido en vez de un evento aislado. Considera el meta juego y la escena de los torneos en Magic: The Gathering, las demandas de un guild que la gente se reúna a una hora puntual en World of Warcraft, o incluso el ritual de la reunión semanal para jugar en un grupo de juegos de mesa o de rol.

 

Recuerda que estas proposiciones no son de todo-o-nada. Los juegos pueden contener varios tipos de diversión, en cantidades variadas.

 

¿Por qué  no crear un juego que las tengas todas? ¿No sería eso el santo grial de los juegos, el juego que es divertido para todos? Desafortunadamente, no. Sólo porque estos son diferentes tipos de diversión no significa en absoluto que todos encuentren divertidos a todos los ocho tipos. No solo los distintos juegos proveen distintas combinaciones y relativas cantidades de los diversos tipos de diversion, sino que distintos jugadores encuentran distintas combinaciones más o menos divertidas que otras. La mitad de la gente que conozco piensa que el Ajedrez es divertido, y la otra mitad piensa lo contrato; la estética "divertida" surge no sólo del juego, sino de la combinación del juego y el jugador.

 

¿Son sólo estos los únicos tipos de diversión? No; hasta los autores admiten que la lista anterior es incompleta. Hay muchos esquemas de clasificiación para identificar a los diferentes tipos de diversión, incluyendo las cuatro claves divertidas de Nicole Lazzaro, o las catorce formas de diversión de Pierre-Alexadre Garneau. Inclusive los 8 tipos de diversión del paper de MDA son debatibles. ¿Tiene sentido separar la Fantasía y la Narrativa, o son sólo dos maneras de ver al mismo tipo de diversión? ¿Es la sumisión realmente un tipo de diversión, o es lo que pasa cuando tienes un juego que es suficientemente irresistible para ganarse el estatus de "hobby - es una causa o un efecto? ¿Qué cuenta exactamente como una "expresión" y qué no lo cuenta?

 

¿Y en donde cabe todo lo que hablamos la última vez sobre "diversión es aprendizaje, aprendizaje es diversión" en esta discusión?

 

Evolución (sin Pokemon)

 

La respuesta de Falstein es devolverse a la temprana pre-historia, cuando los humanos estaban en su etapa de cazadores y recolectores. Los humanos primitivos tenían que aprender muchas habilidades para sobrevivir y reproducirse. Si encontrábamos divertido aprender ciertas habilidades, probablemente las practicaríamos más, y por lo tanto seríamos más capaces de sobrevivir, reproducirse y pasar nuestros genes a la siguiente generación. En el tiempo, estas cosas que nos hicieron más capaces de sobrevivir terminaron siendo las cosas que encontramos "divertidas" el día de hoy. No todas las habilidades de cazador y recolecto son necesariamente útiles hoy, por supuesto, pero nuestra genética aún no ha tenido chance de actualizarse con nuestra tecnología.

 

En resumen: si un cavernícola lo encontraba útil, tú lo encontrarás divertido.

 

Falstein propone tres tipos de diversión: "diversión física" (útil para toda clase de actos físicos que nos permitan pelear o escapar del peligro), "diversión mental" (la parte de nuestro cerebro que resuelve problemas y que nos dio cosas útiles como la rueda y el fuego), y "diversión social" (los beneficios de juntarse para supervivencia mutua... y, por supuesto, reproducción).

 

Cuando vi esto por primera vez, pensé "¡wow!" excepto que lo deletreé "WoW"... porque, ¿qué es World of Warcraft, sino diversión física (combate), diversión mental (optimizar tu equipo y habilidades), y diversión social (Elfos Nocturnos danzarines)?

 

Pero podemos aplicar este pensamiento evolutivo a cualquiera de los "tipos de diversión". Veamos algunos de los 8 tipos de diversión de MDA en este contexto:

 

• La sensación incluye movimiento físico (bueno para hacer músculo) y escuchar y ver cosas que son interesantes (bueno para detectar oportunidades o peligros).
• La fantasía nos permite visualizar escenarios de "que tal si..." que fortalecen nuestro cerebro, permitiéndonos que se nos ocurran nuevas ideas.
• La narrativa es útil para pasar información vital y experiencia a otros en tu grupo, aumentando las probabilidades de que todos sobrevivan.
• El reto es una manera conveniente de que los distintos humanos muestren dominio sobre otros de una manera relativamente segura - "yo puedo tirar esta piedra más lejos que tú" es más útil que "luchemos hasta morir" si estás tratando de construir una colonia.
• La camaradería abre la posibilidad de nuevas fuentes de comida (uno solo de nosotros puede morir cazando a una bestia grande, pero juntos como grupo podemos derribarle). Es también algo difícil pasar tu material genético a la siguiente generación si estás solo.
• El descubrimiento es lo que nos hace explorar nuestro territorio circundante. Mientras más territorio conozcamos, más lugares potenciales para nosotros para encontrar comida y refugio.
• La expresión probablemente viene de la misma parte de nosotros que está cableada para comunicarse a través del lenguaje. El lenguaje, y la comunicación en general, son muy útiles.
• La sumisión es... bueno, no estoy seguro de ello. Probablemente sea un efecto de la diversión más que una causa. 

 

Descubriendo nuevos tipos de diversión

 

Podemos hacer esto en reversa. En vez de tomar algo que es divertido y relacionarlo de vuelta con las partes reptiles de nuestro cerebro, podemos aislar habilidades que nuestros ancestros cazadores-recolectores pudieron haber tenido para sobrevivir, y luego usar eso para averiguar qué encontraremos divertido. Por ejemplo, he aquí algunas activades que solemos encontrar en los juegos:

 

• Coleccionar. Esta en la parte de "recolección" de cazar y recolectar, así que esperarías que fuese divertida. Y lo es. Cuando era niño, antes de que los juegos se volviesen tan populares, el hobby más popular era coleccionar estampillas. En muchos juegos de mesa coleccionas recursos o tokens. En los juegos de cartas coleccionas cartas. En el mundo de los videojuegos, hemos estado coleccionando cosas desde que Mario comenzó a coleccionar monedas.
• Razonamiento espacial. Los humanos primitivos necesitaban conocer relaciones espaciales para construir herramientas útiles (por ejemplo, si quieres encontrar un palo grande para hacer una escalera cruda o un puente, necesitas ser capaz de estimar la longitud; si quieres pegar dos piezas de madera, necesitas averiguar cómo hacer para que calcen). Muchos juegos hacen uso de las habilidades espaciales, desde Tetris hasta Pente.
• Avance.  Veo esto como una suerte de meta-habilidad, la habilidad de aprender nuevas habilidades, lo cual es obviamente útil para el humano primitivo que necesita aprender un montón de habilidades

 

•  

• Advancement. I see this as kind of a meta-skill, the skill of learning new skills, which is obviously useful to a primitive human that needs to learn a lot of skills. We see this formalized in games all the time, from the overt Experience Points and Levels to finding new items or buying new weapons that give us better stats or new capabilities.
• Finding Shortcuts. Finding novel, undiscovered ways to work around problems in ways that take less effort than normal helped primitive humans to conserve their energy; in that sense, laziness can be a virtue. Ironically, in games, this often takes the form of deliberate rule-breaking and cheating.
• Griefing. Like other forms of competition, putting other people down is a way to show dominance and superiority over your peers. (Yes, some of us find it annoying and immature, but cavemen are not exactly known for their emotional sensitivity.)

Perhaps you can think of other kinds of fun. Feel free to add to the list in the Comments on this blog post.

Games Change Over Time

Play in general, and games in particular, help us to exercise the skills we need for adulthood. While the things we find fun require millions of years of evolution to change, the games we play can change with each generation. As such, you can tell a lot about a society’s values by looking at its most popular games. (A few centuries back when most people were farmers, grain harvesting was a big deal to a lot of people. Today it is not, so we do not see a predominance of “grain games” in our contemporary world.)

This gives yet one more potential starting point when designing a game. Think about what kinds of skills are useful in adulthood in your culture. Find a link between those and the skills needed for a primitive hunter-gatherer to survive. Then, design a game that exercises those skills. Most successful learning games do this, by integrating the learning into the game. The actions in the game either consist of using the skills that need to be learned, or the learning of a skill is the victory condition of the game. In both cases, the gameplay is aligned with the inherent fun and joy of learning, and you can end up with an “educational” game that is also fun. Note that this is in stark contrast to the typical “Edutainment” title that requires rote learning as a prerequisite for play, or that separates the learning and the gameplay, which has been proven time and again to be not fun.

 

One Problem

So, now it would appear we have all the answers. Flow states are pleasurable. We are driven by our hardwired tendencies to build useful hunter-gatherer skills. Games can exploit these to produce that thing we call “fun.”

Is that it?

Well, no.

First, we must question our collective obsession with this “fun” business. Fun is not the only pleasurable emotion. For example, designers often talk of:

• Fiero, the triumphant feeling of completing a significant, challenging task. “You rock!”
• Schadenfreude, the gloating feeling you get when a rival fails at something. “Tragedy is when I stub my toe; comedy is when you fall off a cliff and die.”
• Naches, the warm feeling of self-worth that you get when your child, student, or other person you are mentoring succeeds. “I’m so proud of you!”
• Kvell, the emotion you feel when bragging about your child, student, etc. “My kid is an honor student at Wherever Elementary.”

None of these emotions would be described as “fun” exactly. None of them are directly related to flow states, either. But they are pleasurable. And they could certainly add something to a gameplay experience.

Also, as we discussed when talking about art games, “fun” is not necessarily the only purpose for which games could be made. We may read War and Peace and say that it is a good book, but we would not call it fun. We may say that Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan are great movies, but people would look at us very strange if we said either one was fun. Macbeth is not particularly fun. Viewing the Mona Lisa is not fun. The daily news is rarely fun. And yet, these things can all be deeply meaningful.

A game reviewer might say of the Mona Lisa: “Great visuals, but only one level, low interactivity, not much replay value. Interesting, but not very fun. 2/10.”

The rest of us would not.

So, that premise that I started with last Monday – “a game designer’s job is to make a game fun” – is something that you should all be a bit uncomfortable with by now. Fun is certainly a strong component of many games, but games do not have to be limited to that. Our role as game designers goes beyond making a game fun. A game designer’s job is to craft a meaningful gameplay experience.

Fun just happens to be a convenient and easy way to do this. But never forget that it is not the only way.

 

Another Problem

Koster points out in A Theory of Fun that players are, at their core, lazy. They tend to seek games similar to those that they’re already good at, so they are not learning something that is new, which reduces the amount of learning-pleasure they can receive. They tend to look for loopholes, exploits, and cheats, which likewise circumvent the pleasurable learning process. Players make the game less fun – but they do it anyway.

In fairness, game designers do this too. We probably do this even moreso than most players, since we are so experienced at finding patterns in games and we see the forms so quickly. This leads to lots of derivative work. Personally, the first game I ever worked on was a collectible card game, and even now I instinctively want to add cards, custom decks, cost/benefit decisions, and the concept of rarity to every game I make. Another designer I know sees everything in terms of RPGs. Another one of my colleagues tries to turn everything into a Sim game. Most of us, I think, tend to think in terms of one genre even if we’re working in another. In my experience, it’s usually the genre of the first game we work on professionally.

Is there something about us that makes us like one kind of game over another? If it is as simple as “personal taste” then why do we see so much overlap among gamers?

 

Player Types

This brings us to Bartle and his player types. As with kinds of fun (and definitions of games), we find no shortage of people willing to advance their own theory of player types. Why read Bartle, then, and not someone else? First, Bartle’s was the first essay of its kind to gain widespread interest and acceptance, so it is important historically; second, because there are certain aspects of it that make for interesting dissection.

Let us look at the four proposed types of players in a MUD (or MMO):

• Achievers find it enjoyable to gain power, level up, and generally to “win” the game (to the extent that an ongoing, never-ending game can be “won”).
• Explorers want to explore the world, build mental maps of the different areas in their heads, and generally figure out what is in their surroundings.
• Socializers use the game as a social medium. They play for the interaction with other players. The gameplay systems are just a convenient excuse to get together and play with friends.
• Killers (today we call them “griefers”) derive their fun from ruining other people’s fun.

What is the motivation of each player type? Why do they do what they do? This relates back to the different kinds of fun.

Comparing the lists of Bartle’s player types and MDA’s 8 kinds of fun, we see parallels. Achievers favor Challenge fun. Explorers seem to like Discovery fun. Socializers are all about Fellowship fun. And Killers… well, they don’t map to a specific kind of fun in MDA, but the Griefing fun that I proposed as an addition seems to work well.

Other player type schemes show similar correlations: each “player type” is really a kind of fun, or a combination of several kinds of fun, personified. The two concepts (player types and kinds of fun) are really the same concept expressed in different ways.

This suggests that you can start with a list of kinds of fun, and invent new player types based on some combination of fun types. Car racing games combine Sensation and Challenge fun; I could propose a “Racer” player type as the kind of player who likes these kinds of games. And then I could make a guess that other games, such as “Xtreme Sports,” might appeal to the same player type since they have a similar “fun signature.”

You could also go the other way. If you manage to isolate a new player type (i.e. a pattern of play that appears in a nontrivial percentage of your playtesters), by studying that type and what the players are doing, you may be able to discover new kinds of fun.

Which Comes First? 

If we can go back and forth between player types and kinds of fun, we may wonder if this is a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Is it better to start with players, or fun?

Consider this: as game designers, we create rules (mechanics). The rules create the play dynamics when set in motion, and those cause the aesthetic of fun in the players. The things that we create, are a root cause of fun. Therefore, it is the kinds of funthat are of greatest concern to us.

We do not create players. (Well, those of us who are parents could say that they do, but you know what I mean.) As game designers, our rules do not create new players or player types. Therefore, any list of player types is only useful to the extent that it is correlated with kinds of fun.

Let me give an example. There is a book, 21st Century Game Design, by Chris Bateman and Richard Boon, that proposes player types based on Myers-Briggs personality types. The main idea of doing market research, understanding the players that you are designing for, and designing a game to fit the target market is an idea that has definite applications in game design. But the implementation has a problem. Myers-Briggs types are mapped to player types, which in turn correspond to different kinds of fun. There are two levels of abstraction here, which means a higher-than-normal error rate. People do not always fall neatly and precisely into 16 categories, after all.

A more well-trod example is that of classifying players as “casual” or “hardcore.” Now we see why this distinction may be useful to marketing suits, but not so much to game designers. What kinds of fun correspond to these players? What is “casual fun” or “hardcore fun”? This is not clear. We are told that casual gamers want experiences that are short, easy to learn, not very challenging. Yet, some so-called “casual games” are difficult (Diner Dash), long (Puzzle Quest), or complicated (Virtual Villagers). Instead of spending time trying to define a single “casual gamer” archetype, I suspect it would be more fruitful to identify the kinds of fun that help a so-called “casual game” to succeed, and then work from there.

 

A Note for Teachers

As with last time, there are some direct parallels with teaching. Where I say “player types” and “kinds of fun” an educator might be thinking of “learning styles.” What I call Sensation, Narrative and Expression fun, you might refer to as Audio, Visual, or Kinesthetic learning.

Think of ways to apply this to your classroom:

• How many kinds of fun do you use in your classroom? Do you use a variety, in order to give all students a chance to be engaged and fascinated at least some of the time? 
• Sensation fun is pretty easy. Bring things to class that are interesting to look at. Bring props that can be felt or passed around. I know one teacher who will get the entire class to stand up and stretch if she sees the students nodding off. 
• Narrative is another easy one. Most subjects have stories embedded in them. It is much easier for most people to remember a story than to remember a random factoid. We’re hardwired to tell and to listen to stories. 
• Challenge often comes in the form of quiz-show-type games in class. While Jeopardy! is still marginally more interesting than the average college lecture, keep in mind that students are not making any interesting decisions. You can do better than this. Formal or informal debates and discussions with students taking sides can also play to this kind of fun. 
• Fellowship can happen in class when students are put in groups, or during class discussions. 
• Discovery is difficult in most classrooms, as everyone is stuck in their seats and can’t explore the area much. Field trips are an obvious way to work on this. If your classroom is internet-enabled, you can ask students to do Web searches, at least letting them explore a virtual space if not a real one. 
• Collection is a kind of fun that is most often seen in elementary school classrooms, giving students stickers or gold stars. It is riskier in higher education (you run the risk of treating your grad students like they were in kindergarten), but it can be done. I know an Economics professor, for example, who printed out a bunch of dollar bills with his face on them, and handed them out to students during in-class exercises, pop quizzes, and the like. Students could exchange the play money for real cash and prizes at the end of the term. 
• Advancement is a kind of fun that is inherent in any course where the later material builds on what was learned earlier. If you created a diagram of skills being taught in the class (with arrows drawn from the prerequisite skills to the new skills being layered on top), you might find that it looks a lot like a “tech tree” or “skill tree” in an RTS or MMO video game. By exposing this kind of skill diagram to the students (and then showing them when they gain new skills and “unlock” access to other more advanced skills) you can create a sense of accomplishment… and also make the connections between the topics easier to see. Incidentally, for department heads out there, you can also do this for an entire curriculum, diagrammatically showing the course requirements and prerequisites. 

 

Lessons Learned

In general, the things we find fun are related to the skills our distant ancestors needed in order to survive. We can exploit this in our game designs to make games that are more fun.

Some people find certain kinds of fun more interesting and engaging than others. Tastes vary. Try looking at your own favorite games (and popular games that you don’t like) and see if you can discover your own personal “fun signature.”

Remember that “fun” is but one of many emotional responses that a game can invoke in a player. Our goal as game designers is to deliver a compelling experience, which may or may not be fun. Most of the art games in Level 6 were not particularly fun… but they were deeply meaningful. Fun is an important part of what we do, but do not seek fun at the exclusion of all else.

As you do your own research, you will undoubtedly run into many articles that purport to classify Fun or Players into types. Do not take any such article as gospel. Instead, analyze it to see if it makes sense. For fun types, can you see why we (or our hunter-gatherer ancestors) would find each type fun? For player types, can you see a link between player types and kinds of fun, since it is easier for a game designer to create a custom brand of fun than to create a new type of player?

 

Feedback

If you have time, before beginning the Homeplay below, please take the time to offer constructive feedback to at least two other posts at your skill level from the War challenge from Level 7 (posted on the forum), and also at least three other posts at a skill level below yours (unless you posted in Green Circle).

Try to complete your feedback on or before Monday, July 27, noon GMT.

 

Homeplay

Let’s practice our ability to find mechanics that give rise to a specific kind of fun. The kind of fun we’ll be considering here isgriefing (that is, deriving enjoyment from the act of ruining other people’s enjoyment).

Create a concept for a game that is built to appeal specifically to griefers (i.e. Bartle’s “Killer” player type). Post it in the forums. You do not need to create the rules for a game. Just create a concept that includes enough information to communicate what the gameplay would be like

Your post should include the following:

• Target medium or platform. Is this a PC game? Console? Board or card game? Tabletop RPG?
• Number of players
• A paragraph or two describing the game concept
• Another paragraph explaining why this concept will appeal to the target market.

Post in the forum that most closely resembles your skill and experience level as a designer:

Beginner, little or no experience prior to taking this course.

 

Intermediate, some coursework or exposure to game design but little or no professional experience.

Advanced, at least some professional experience as a published game designer.

Make your post on or before Monday, July 27, noon GMT. Then, offer constructive feedback to at least two other posts in the same forum, and at least three posts in one forum “below” yours if you posted in Blue Square or Black Diamond, before Thursday, July 30.

 

Mini-Challenge

Can you think of a new kind of fun? Describe it and justify why it is fun in 135 characters or less. Post it to Twitter with the #GDCU tag. Offer as many as you can think of. Tweet before July 27, noon GMT.