What is a game?
· Interactive
· Goal
· Rules
· Competition
· Story
What are you doing when playing a game?
· Killing time
· Sensing a game environment
· Taking action
What makes games boring?
· Repetition
· Micro management
· Technical issues
· Too easy to hard
· Copy cat stuff
· Poor endings
· Weak storyline
Interface issues
· High cost
· Hard to learn
· Avoid making user hunt for information
· Long sequences of keyboard operations
What do players want?
· A challenge
· To socialize
· To play on their own (sometimes)
· Bragging rights
· Emotional experience
· To fantasize
What do players expect?
· Consistent game world
· To understand game world boundaries
· Reasonable solutions to problems
· Sense of direction (goals and hints)
· Accomplish goals incrementally
· To be immersed in game world
· To fail
· Fair chance to win
· Avoid unnecessary repetition
· Not to get stuck hopelessly
· Not to be passive watchers of all action sequences
What it takes to make a successful game – playability and knowing the audience
Audiences
Ages 2 – 4
1. Trouble controlling mice and keyboard
2. No instructions
3. Prompt user for input during long pauses baby speech
4. Use speech for payoffs
5. Speech for stories
6. Talking characters
7. Simple graphics and bright colors
Ages 4 –5
1. Kids can recognize a few words
2. Mouse control is a little better
3. Keyboard is a must
Early elementary 5—8
1. Monsters and bad guys cant be to scary
2. Injury blood and gore is a no-no
Upper elementary 7 – 11
1. Quick to judge material as babyish
2. Characters a little older than the players
3. Watch vocabulary
Middle school 12 –17
1. Tough age group
2. Operate computers at an adult level
3. Boys love games like quake
4. Girls like social activity games
Adults 17+
Gender considerations