[MUSIC] Welcome to week three. This is actually one of my favorite parts of the course, where we start to talk about system design. In particular gameplay systems. So to start off, we're gonna talk about gameplay and design. So, how many of you have actually thought about the question? What's a game? And the truth is I don't wanna get into a debate about this. But it's important to think about what we're talking about when we're talking about a game. Right? So there are lots of definitions out there, and there are lots different ways about thinking about games. But some ideas out there, help us think about designing games better. So, one possibility is, a game as a series of interesting choices. That comes from Sid Meier of Firaxis Games, right? So Sid Meier's responsible for, and most notably, perhaps, Civilization. Those games rely heavily on systems, and the interaction between the user and those systems. Another possible definition, is a game as a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, designed by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. That comes from the book, The Rules of Play, by Salen and Zimmerman. Those are useful for us, right? They help us think about what we're doing when we design games, when we design the systems that sit back behind the visuals of a game. We talked a lot about story and narrative and plot and setting, but now it's time for us to really think about the systems behind a game. Games are a little bit different than other forms of media, or they might be. It's arguable. Lots of people will have debates about this, but for me, games are an interesting form of media, right? So in some ways, players don't so much consume as they play a game, they're actively involved with it, right? The player's an active, engaged participant in the activity. And, unpredictable, right. We talked about that that creates difficulty, particularly when we're trying to tell stories. But that's also what makes games interesting, the fact that somebody has to pick up a controller, and interact with the system that you've designed. So as we've already mentioned, there's the MDA or mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics model, that sits behind Brian Wynn's model. The MDA framework, or mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetic model, sits behind Brian Wynn's model that we've been using for this course. And that's important to remember, right. That this is a key part of what we're talking about. And in game design, what we're talking about now, the mechanics and the dynamics are the most important things that we're looking at. So let's talk a little bit about the MDA framework, because this is important to talk about and in particular aesthetics, right? So, in art aesthetics are about principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty. Right? Color, form, shape. And these things are highly subjective. Right? They're kind of in the eye of the beholder. And, in games, aesthetics really have more to do with sort of the appreciation of fun, or the kinds of experiences that we have when we interact with a game. Which in some ways is why games have had sort of a troubled history with other forms of art. Games aren't viewed in the same way as other forms of media. Aesthetics are about subjectivity, right. It's emotional, it's how you relate to the thing that you're experiencing. And that's really important, all right. So because it's kind of an overloaded term, we actually use the idea of affect. An affect allows us to think about, or talk about emotion and desire, as it relates to games. And so when we talk about MDA, and in particular Brian's model, we're talking about affect. So it's a kind of minor variation to the MDA model, but it helps us talk about really what we're interested in, the affect of a player. How are we emotionally affecting the player? All right, so get ready. We're gonna talk more about game mechanics and system design. [MUSIC]
