My notes on: I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward A Critical Vocabulary for Games Greg Costikyan

Interaction

Chris Crawford 1982 "The Art of Computer Game Design " was used as a reference by Costikyan to express his views on interaction.

Chris Crawford contrasted games against puzzles and explained how "no one would call a crossword a "game." although Crawford does state that some games are really just puzzles - Zork, for instance. I agree with that statement because games like portal, peggle or bejewelled are puzzles, although since they are "not static and change with the players actions".

Crawford goes on to explain how 'Zork', and other adventure games, are "more than a mere puzzle".

Goals

Costikyan starts explaining how interaction is simple, he uses a light switch as an example because you can interact with a light switch but it's definitely not a game to flick a light switch. He then moves on to explain how to interact with something should offer a choice in which you'd know what was going to happen. Decision making is 'interaction with purpose' and what turns something into a game is the need to make decisions.

The medium in which you play games changes in regards to what platform you're playing on, be it card, board or video games you're playing but they all push the player to "responds in a fashion calculated to help him achieve his objectives."

Most games have a very explicit 'win state' which is usually considered a goal set by the game although often you will see games which allow players to create their own goals. SimCity is much like this. The End-Game of most games are very much like this too. Once you've finished the narrative, as a player you're forced to give yourself goals within the game.

Struggle

Struggle makes games fun. You can struggle vs real life opponents but that isn't the only way to give the player a struggle. Struggling gives the player a sense of accomplishment once they've finished the game. Look at Sonic the Hedgehog for example; if the level was a straight line throughout with no enemies it would be very boring. The difficulty ramping and constant sense of progress through struggle makes you keep playing the game until you finish it.

In RPG games you'll often find yourself 'grinding' for experience or levels, completing accomplishable tasks to progress to a high level and eventually take on the big boss you've been 'struggling' to level up to be able to fight. It's very important for a player to experience struggle in games purely for the sense of accomplishment given to the player when they finally get to the point they wanted to be at.

Endogenous Meaning

Endogenous meaning in a game world is to give something a value in the game and some sort of important purpose. A sword in a hack and slash fighting game, a gun in a bang bang shooty gun game, money in monopoly or a specific piece of a puzzle in an adventure game. However valuable these items are in the game though, they are completely useless in real life.

Lately we've seen Blizzard release Diablo 3 with a real world trading system for players to use real money to buy in game items giving them a 'real world' value. Many 'freemium' games, similarly, allow the player to buy items in the game to enhance their experience or to progress quicker in the game. Diablo 3 is the first game however to allow players to auction their items to people around the world.

Costikyan states that 'Games are Fantasy' and they are, you can't take your character out of the world or become your character in the real world. Blizzard are taking an innovative step towards blurring the lines between real life value and in game value though. Although most games do stick to the conventions of 'Games are games, reality is reality' I feel like maybe there could be some change in the future and the lines, over time, could be blurred more.