Games MDA

What makes up a game?

It's a question that I tried to tackle in one of my initial blog posts way back in the day. It is a difficult thing to answer because the true definition of a game is a difficult one to nail down. However upon reading the readings it has helped me surmount this impossible task of discovering what it truly is that defines a game. The readings handily broke it down into a simple bullet pointed list with items such as rules, objectives and themes. These are the main 3 in my opinion

https://www.familyeducation.com/fun/making-family-time/importance-rules-games

Above is an article about the importance of rules in games, it basically boils down to leaving all players on equal footing and maintaining order in the game. It also kind of ties into the objective as the two work hand in hand in order to guide the players to what it is that the game wants to accomplish.

https://www.publicmedievalist.com/game-objectives/

Objectives are what drives a player to do what the game wants them to do. An example is if a game asks you to defeat an enemy to advance then the player will try to advance by defeating the enemy. Certain games like minecraft have been both praised and criticized for a lack of objective at least before the ender dragon was added which is a pretty loose objective that a lot of players choose to ignore or at least not have it as a priority.

 https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/raddevon/blog/how-important-is-theme-in-video-games/31223/

Theme is very important.Is your game a first person shooter, an RPG, a strategy game etc. This let's
people know what to expect from the game when they are heading in to it for the first time. This can also help set the tone for a game, an RPG will normally convey a better story than a first person shooter, not always but most of the time. Theme also sets the tone as the two are very closely linked, for instance a game focused on being a balanced, competitive game such as overwatch or League Of Legends will not put much if any time into a story and will solely focus on gameplay and balance.