The Purpose of a Game

what is the purpose of a game if you're new to Game Dev or like me have been doing it for years now but at underwhelming success chances are there's a lot that you don't know about making a good game you might be thinking where do I start how do I know if I'm focusing on the right things do I need a team or why would anyone even care about my game if any of these are familiar you're in the right place why listen to me well I read this book also I teach game design at a high school and I develop games myself and hopefully by watching these videos we'll be able to get to where I am a lot faster than I did let's get back to the purpose of a game the purpose of a game is not just to entertain or just to be appealing and it's not just to be educational sure Min games are all of those things and even more but let's take a look at this simple idea a game is useless until someone plays it so okay is playing the important part no that can't be right because people have spectated Sports and video games for as long as they've existed so let's try another idea out I want you to think back to a cherished game from your childhood seriously do it closing your eyes might help the first game that popped into mind I want you to think back to the place you were when you played it what it was like rushing home to boot up that console or hearing that familiar music and seeing those characters for me Pokemon comes to mind hours and hours of magic through that backlit tiny pixelated screen in that eight bit music that I can't get out of my head if you're anything like me you know that feeling and how badly you wanted to push through that screen and live in that world that experience is the purpose of the game not all experiences come from games of course but games have the strongest ability to create them this is why we make games your game could allow someone to experience the life of a pirate or what it's like to date a girl or save the world games let us experience worlds and characters we otherwise couldn't and can actually make you a better person more on that later games can also be funny hug giant waves maybe your game isn't about simulating a life-changing experience but rather is about collecting bees or being a slice of bread you would be surprised at how much impact even those ideas can have so great you have an answer a game is meant to convey an experience well so what you've been making a game now or at least thinking of it right have you thought about the experience you want to give your players some games are more obvious than others so let's take a look at some examples first starting with simulators a simulator is a game that's designed to capture a specific experience they tend to hold that priority over storytelling and sometimes even over good game design work at a pizza piz place is exactly what it sounds like you work with a team to operate a pizza store in Roblox taking on any task from making the pizzas to delivering them why would anyone want to do that I could do that in real life and make money or I could play a different video game like Call of Duty or breath of the Wild Well in work at a pizza place you're paid in direct correlation to how well you do your job and you have enough money to actually have a house and buy luxuries for yourself it's a simpler world where this experience is better than it would be in real life now some games don't lend themselves as well to a specific experience at least not on the surface level take pong for example or Cookie Clicker what is the experience you're getting with pong honestly pong is about playing a video game pong doesn't need to be anything but playing a game because that's what was novel and Innovative at the time Cookie Clicker though is an interesting example too there wasn't exactly a world or a story and it was you know pass to the time when video games were new so maybe this experience is about getting a higher number than your friends or optimizing your Tycoon that experience of competition is very sought after now that we have thought about some examples here's your next step I want you to write down your experience statement this could be my game will give players the experience of blank and if you really care about this and making a good experience at a second sentence this experience is valuable because it might feel like a waste of time time or just a dumb exercise but if you let yourself buy into this like I have you will find that you can make choices about your game way easier than before here's my game Ambit my game will give players the experience of being a child who sets off in a wonderful sailing adventure around the world of Ambit this experience is valuable because it's important that people let themselves connect with their inner child and play more freely now that I have this statement I could check all of my choices with it with adding a firstperson mode further this experience or is it better to just pilot the ship does piloting cannons add to the existing Adventure or should there be fun characters to talk to as well now that you know the core experience you're trying to build the chances are you're going to be better at building it I mentioned earlier in this video that games can make you a better person that's a big claim so let's talk about it in my lived experience a good person is a person that's considerate they understand themselves others and the world and act according to those understandings we only have one lifetime to figure out those three things and often that one lifetime isn't enough this is precisely WHY games often give you more than one life they let you try and fail and redo over and over through multiple lives until you understand what you need to [Music] all right one more time they can also help you learn to problem solve they make you face tough social situations and they show you lives and worlds that are nothing like yours so you can understand what it's like to be someone else these experiences can help you with similar ones in real life and I want to show off these two clips from Brennan Lee Mulligan and Matt Mercer everybody does it well that's kind of what's Magic about the experience and how the experiences that you create at the table the the memories that are being recorded are being recorded in the same part of the brain that actual physical memory of of experiences you're having are there's something about the storytelling method the communal storytelling method that records it so when you remember when you recall these experiences you don't remember necessarily the table with your friends rolling dice you remember being on the collapsing Bridge Under the Mountain you know and your friend reaching out and grabbing your hand and you tell these tales as if they actually happened you have a the potential to be heroic here like you have the potential to do something um uh and experience making these choices in first person I can point to laring and d and d in my own life and moments in my life that were either crises or where I needed to step up and act in a more moral or self-sacrificing way than was than is normal and could point to role playing experiences and go oh man there there is a resonance in this story to what I'm going through in this moment that is making this easier because even though they're not firsthand lived experiences stories do give us senses of that Resonance of like I've seen something like this before and this hard moment is going to get a little bit easier here now you remember these experiences just as well as you may remember going to the dentist or going on vacation your time building with friends carefully choosing dialogue options fighting evil and just having fun are all part of what has made you you make your game with purpose and give other people an experience that will become part of them I hope you liked this video it's the first of a series I'm hoping to produce and a lot of the thoughts accumulated within are inspired and drawn from the art of game design by Jesse shell if you're brave enough to read it I highly encourage that you do so as it'll dramatically assist you in your journey of game design like it has for me if it's daunting don't worry I'm hoping to distill what I felt are some of the most powerful and important Concepts from this book into this series this is going to be a less thorough series than the book of course but it should still be helpful now sometimes when I watch a video like this I get a little bit of motivation to work on games or at least think about them and I hope that if you're feeling that motivation here stop watching videos take advantage of that motivation and create something I'm going on the same Journey as you I'm developing games and learning as much as you are and I'd be happy to share thoughts and ideas in the comments or even in the Discord so if you've made it to the end of the video thank you so much uh go ahead and comment your experience statement so I know that you've actually watched all the way through the next video in this series will be on the develope

Channel: Floast Dev

Views: 5,984

Keywords: games, gamedesign, gamedev, exp, experience, dnd

Id: TltgyKW2drE

Length: 9min 36sec (576 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024