Game Elements

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For this week's task we were given four readings to do on game elements. Game elements are what is needed to make a game. The first reading we had to do was "What are the qualities of a game?'. The reading taught us about game definitions and recurring themes of a game. The recurring themes were rules, conflicts, goals, decision-making and an uncertain outcome. The reading also described games as activities, artificial/safe ordinary outdoor life, voluntary and a form of art to name a few things. The reading also told us about the atomic elements of a game. These atomic elements were players, objectives,  rules, resources and resource management, game state, information, sequencing, player interaction, theme and games as systems. The reading also talked about critical analysis.  It tells us that critical analysis isn't necessarily a review and that it is more about discussing and comparing games. Critical analysis is looking at parts of the game and how they interact and understanding how each part relates to the play experience. It is also useful when examining our own play in progress and figuring out how to know what to add and remove from the game we are working on in order to make it better (https://tudublin-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/shaun_ferns_tudublin_ie/EWlNUos7p8lFgRytGr80kbYBzMrZ6rnlKTegFJnnr_fSLg?e=3kRB39). We also watched a video on introduction to game design where they teach you how to prototype your game. The first thing they did was to draw out the idea for their game on a piece of paper. The game they were trying to prototype was Pong one of the earliest video games ever invented. They also showed us their own takes on ping pong. First they showed us a game they invented which was a mix between handball and ping pong. The people in the video hit the ping pong ball against the wall back and forth just like in handball where you have to throw the ball back and forth against the wall and catch it but they used ping pong paddles. The people in the video also showed us them playing ping pong with two paddles, with no net on the table and with two balls. These people took what is already a well known game and made their own version of it using their imagination which is very important when it comes to inventing a game (https://youtu.be/ZzQY1OfDc-I).