by Annie | Jul 13, 2011 | Psychology of Games
Wow, look at you reading my blog. And here I didn’t even know you could read. I guess that big head of yours is good for something after all. Or maybe not. As it turns out, trash-talking is almost as important to our enjoyment of social network games as the core gameplay. As counterintuitive as it may sound, research has found that teasing each other is one of the fastest and most effective ways to build and intensify positive feelings for each other. Remember all those times you spent teasing your friends on the playground back in the day? You were just secretly trying to become more popular. What a sad little life you lead. The psychology of teasing was especially pertinent as I played through the Portal games recently. (Yes, I know. I’m a bit late to the party.) The more GLaDOS trash-talked me, the more determined I became and the more I wanted to keep playing. I would try as hard as I could to solve the puzzles, then I’d get a monotone statement like, “Remember before when I was talking about smelly garbage standing around being useless? That was a metaphor. I was actually talking about you. And I’m sorry. You didn’t react at the time so I was worried it sailed right over your head. That’s why I had to call you garbage a second time just now.” Admit it. You love it. So as you’re designing games, especially social games, keep in mind the psychology of teasing and what it could add to your game. Of course, having a great writer like Erik Wolpaw on...
by Annie | Jul 6, 2011 | Game Design
One of the most valuable pieces of advice I got during my year at VFS was to just do it. As creative individuals, we could spend countless hours brainstorming concept after concept, piling on features and thinking of different themes. But in the end, the follow-through is what counts. In my experience, the sooner you lock down a game concept, the better. You’re better off spending your time iterating on a single idea to make it as great as possible than coming up with lots of different ideas while leaving yourself very little time to make any of them good. Sure, everyone wants to come up with that innovative idea. That smashing new concept that no one’s ever thought of, that’s so genius it’ll blow everyone’s socks off. But if it hasn’t come to you within a few brainstorming sessions, choose one of the less genius ideas instead and make it as awesome as possible. And who knows? Maybe the genius idea will come about in the next round. And by then, if you’ve already followed through with another idea, you’ll have more experience and wisdom to bring to your genius idea. So go forth, create, and follow through. Because to be a great game designer, you’ve just got to do...
by Annie | Jul 4, 2011 | Travel
To celebrate Independence Day, Joe and I climbed a mountain. No really. We climbed a mountain. Grouse Grind, commonly referred to as Mother Nature’s Stairmaster, is a 2.9km trail up Grouse Mountain. It includes nearly 3,000 steps and an elevation gain of over 850 meters. Not for the faint of heart. And when I say steps, I don’t mean stairs like the ones you’d find in your house. No no. I actually rejoiced at the sight of “normal” stairs along the trail. Most steps were several normal stairs high, created out of rocks and wooden planks anchored into the side of the mountain. Before heading out on the trail, I knew we were in for quite a hike. But after all, we’d hiked a mountain or two before, so I figured we’d be okay. I kid you not, I probably spent half my energy reserves laughing (in fear!) at the sheer size of the mountain when we got to the base. We’re climbing THAT? But I knew there was no turning back at this point, so we headed out on the trail. Within minutes, I was out of breath. I tell you, my breath must be in much better shape than I am, because I spent the next hour and fifteen minutes trying to catch it. Once we finally reached the top (the summit is over 1,100 meters high), the view was breathtaking. We could see all of greater Vancouver and Mount Baker. A bag of trail mix later, we were ready to explore. We spent the next few hours watching lumberjacks, birds of prey, and grizzlies, getting sunburned,...
by Annie | Jul 4, 2011 | Game Design
What’s it like to be a game designer? Well, I’m pretty new to the field, but I can already tell you that it’s a lot of hard work. But also a ton of fun. I started working this week as an official game designer. You know, out in the real world. My job? To design games that encourage kids to be physically active. Sounds a bit counterintuitive, using video games to get kids up off the couch, but that’s where the creative challenge comes in. Our initial aim is to release an iOS game that is highly addictive and gets kids to move around to get some exercise. Because of the platform, we’re limited to iOS device capabilities, namely the accelerometer and gyroscope. (GPS and compass are possibilities as well, but we’re thinking most 6- to 12-year-olds would probably have iPods rather than iPhones.) Because I’m working with a startup (the entire team is just 7 people), I’m in the unique position of having a lot of say in the creative process even though I’m fresh out of school. As the main designer on the project, my days mainly consist of brainstorming and research (i.e., playing comparable games and reading lots of articles). And already, the many assignments we worked on and the skills we acquired at VFS are coming in quite handy. The deliverables on my list in the coming months include a concept doc, design doc, QA plan, tuning for pacing and difficulty, design of control schemes, and UI design, as well as numerous pitches to the team about different concepts under development. A year ago today...
by Annie | Jun 28, 2011 | Psychology of Games
We’ve always been taught that the opposite of play is work. Play is fun. Work is not. However, positive psychologists have found that work and play can be one and the same. In fact, people tend to be happiest when they’re working hard. That’s why games are so popular and so many people spend so much time playing them. Games provide achievable goals with rules and obstacles. Games make you work hard, but that means you’re having fun! If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend checking out Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken. I’ve just started the book but have already learned a lot about the psychology and real world application of games....
