A new view to Game Designing

Intoducing the Devcathlon

This semester, yours truly, will be continuing the journey into software engineering by taking the next level, which is ICS 414.  I will be participating in the development of the devcathlon, which is inspired by the decathlon.  Unlike the decathlon, the devcathlon will involve software developers and there will be no physical event involved.  Though, the devcathlon will be very much similar to its original counterpart the decathlon; it will have events that developers can participate in.  Software developers partaking in an event by entering, either individual or team, projects.

The development of the project will earn points by events, such as: the number of commits you do to the repository, having a high coverage, keeping complexity of the program low, and many more.  All these can help you gain points or possibly have you lose points, in either an individual or team event.  This will be possible by the use of Hackystat and its sensors, which monitors the project entered to the devcathlon. 

Right now the devcathlon is still in its design phase, but I’m looking forward to taking part in the progress of this semester project. 

 

Gaining wisdom

 In an effort to understand on how to design the devcathlon, I did some readings on effective game designing.  I first found an article containing pieces out of Richard Rouse III’s Game Design: Theory & Practices, which focuses on the elements of game play.  The articles talks about how game designers are expected to instinctively know what makes a game really good, like a sixth sense of that person.  Also that, designers should use holistic methods in devising puzzles or other problems that a player must solve in order to progress into the game.   One idea that I found interesting was to not have the game be linear, having the player became apart of the design of the game’s story; such as, taking a number of different routes to get from point A to point B.  Using the non-linear idea will make the player not feel enclosed to just one way of playing, that way he or she would not become bored of the game. 

Another interesting article by Ernest Adams, entitled Simplification, he discusses how inexperience designers aim to include realism into a game.  An example would be, including air factor and gravity in an airplane simulator game.  Adding such realistic features, make the game complicated, having the player that isn’t a real life pilot not want to play.  He then mentions that designers should include such possible features at the beginning of the game’s design, later removing them and possibly adding back in; taking into account the load it may cause on the tools used to play and make the game. 

I also read a few other articles, another by Ernest Adams, called “Bad Game Designers, No Twinkie”.  He lists a number of characteristics that have not been thought out well in games, both old and new.  Another piece I found was an excerpt of the first chapter of Richard Rouse III’s Game Design: Theory & Practices.  In this chapter he converses on the subject of what players want out of a game.  The last article I read, by David Harlow, was Games as an Educational Tool.  In this, the author talks about how games could be a very useful tool to share some education through some parts of the game.  An example of this would be, using a player’s math skills to unlock a treasure chest.  He then lists things that designers should remember when designing educational games, such as keeping the player motivated to play. 

A better grasp of designing

After reading many articles on effective game designing, I now have a better grasp on how to construct the devcathlon.  Such as, keeping the user interface simple; we wouldn’t want a new player to have so much trouble just to find out his daily event score.  Also another is to find a way to motivate a player, at times competition brings the best out of people or it can also bring out the worse.  Hopefully all the programmers that participate have good sportsmanship.  Lastly is to not drift away from it being an educational tool, but still being fun to play.