Tracy Fullerton: Game Design Workshop

 

As part of my assessment I am expected to read this textbook, Tracy Fullerton: Game Design Workshop, and include reflections of its content. Today I sat down with the book and read through the first two chapters, sadly I have to admit that so far I have found it quite dull. There is nothing here that couldn't be found in a much more interesting YouTube video and most of the ideas and concepts being explained are very introductory. Although of course I have only read the first two chapters and maybe it gets more compelling further on.

I did enjoy reading the "Designer Perspective" interview sections, specifically the interview with Warren Spector was a good read as I am a fan of his work at Looking Glass Studios and Ion Storm. Although again as the interview is mostly a list of game recommendations, I'm sure this content can be found in YouTube video.

There were also five exercises presented through the first chapter which I thought might be fun to have a go at. Of the five, the first requires a friend on hand and the fourth is an extended journal so I didn't bother with either. 

Exercise 1.2: D.O.A.
Take one game that you’ve played that was D.O.A. By D.O.A., I mean “dead on arrival” (i.e., a game 

that’s no fun to play). Write down what you don’t like about it. What did the designers miss? How could the game be improved?

When I think of dead on arrival games the first thing that comes to mind is Fallout 4, I'm sure there are other games I would find less enjoyable to play but Fallout 4 had no reason to be as bad as it was and I gave it way more of a chance than it deserved. To answer the exercise questions, I don't like the way they treated the atmosphere and world, the nuclear post apocalypse was too bright cheerful and light hearted. Everything was too clean and almost cartoony. I think the designers missed what had made people love previous entries in the franchise, an especially egregious mistake considering Fallout: New Vegas had come out before it by another company that had showed them just how it was done. There are thousands of small or even large changes that could have been made to improve the game but I think the one thing that really needed to happen was someone at the top in a management position needed to care about the overall direction and tone.

Exercise 1.3: Your Life as a Game

List five areas of your life that could be games. Then briefly describe a possible underlying game structure for each.

Game 1: Uni Life, this game would be about keeping plates spinning so to speak, how much work can you take on and get done before deadlines are due? can you keep up when things like useless tutors, bad class times and personal life get in the way? Maybe take some inspiration from WarioWare 

Game 2: Translink Journy Wizard, this would be a puzzle game about memorizing and lining up bus times around events, road works, and bad city planning. 

Game 3: Super Centrelink Budget Planer, maybe this could be an adventure game where you run around the city trying to find ways to get money and make the money you have stretch out over food, bills, and enough fun to keep you from falling into depression. 

Game 4: Cooking Student, Just like cooking mama but we're making ramen and rice. 

Game 5: Tracy Fullerton's Workshop Challange 

Its what I always wanted

  

Exercise 1.5: Your Childhood

List ten games you played as a child, for example, hide and seek, four square, and tag. Briefly 

describe what was compelling about each of those games.

I mostly played video games as a child so despite the examples given being non video games I'm going to dive into my childhood thoughts on the video games I played at the time. Also, I think five games is enough. 

Mech Warrior: Getting to pilot a giant robot was the key fantasy of this game, I didn't care about the gameplay or if I won or lost I just loved that I was sitting in the cockpit of my hunchback and I could feel like I was really there in the machine. 

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: This game was all about the story, it felt like reading a book that I really loved. On top of this the ability to choose how the story went, I spent entire weeks debating what the best choice was in some of the questions of morality at the time and to this day will still debate others on what was truly the right thing to do.

Soul Blade: My first foray into competitive games, Soul Blade introduced me to the idea that I could beat or be beaten in a game, training to get better and beat my older friends. The ultimate challenge of beating my uncle kept me enchanted by this game for a long time.

Diablo: Despite not really being an RPG Diablo felt like I was really in the world, the real time fights and desperate battles with the butch set my imagination on fire. A world of monsters, demons, and undead kept me entertained long after the gameplay became repetitive.  

Jade Cocoon: Much like Pokémon the desire to collect every monster was strong here but also Jade Cocoon let you fuse your monsters together to make new and custom designs. In the end this monster catching game became something of an artistic outlet where I was more interested in what strange creatures could be created than how strong they may have been in the game.