Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek – MDA

“The difference between games and other entertainment products (such as books, music, movies, and plays) is that their consumption is relatively unpredictable.”

“Mechanics describes the particular components of the gmae, at the level of the data reresentation and algorithms.

Dynamics describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others’ outputs over time.

Aesthetics describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.”

“From the designer’s perspective, the mechanics give rise to dynamic system behavior, which in turn leads to particular aesthetic experiences. From the player’s perspective, aesthetics set the tone, which is born out in observable dynamics and eventually, operable mechanics.”

Jesper Juul – A History of Matching Tile Games

“When [a] player picks up a game, they are also using their conception of video game history to understand the new game.”

A match-3 game’s design consists primarily of (paraphrased from reading):
– short playing sessions
– auto-save
– mouse control
– very simple rules
– moderate innovation
– multiple levels of success
– much positive feedback
– little negative feedback

“From a game player’s perspective, it may not matter whether actual inspiration took place: the player or developer may identify a game as being derived from another game, regardless of whether there is any truth to this. In other words, the history is a snapshot of a perception of the history of matching tiles games.”

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first assignment topic:

history of bullet hell/shoot ’em up game genre.