9/24/06
The reading covered the components of fun, breaking it into physical, social, mental, and multipurpose fun. There were tips to summarize the advice in the section, and flow charts showing game difficulty progression.
On to notes from the reading:
I really hate the word "funitivity," as it really sounds stupid, not fun and silly like the text suggested. Kind've put a tint on the whole thing for me to see it as a not respectable analysis. Other than that word really rubbing me the wrong way, the rest of the text was interesting, and I expecially liked how the paragraphs were boiled down into neat, memorable tips, which will stick in my head more than the bulky text, but at the same time retain the learned meaning from the surrounding text.
The MacLuhen pointer on there being little difference between fun and entertainment really struck me as interesting, as they are two things I've never really grouped together before.
I was impressed with the tip on survival skills being a great source of inspiration for new game themes, and I'm keeping that in mind for the next time I need to think up a game idea. I think this will help, to walk through and figure out what components will make a game fun and compelling. I like that they used the word "compelling." I also took the tip of changing the story, setting, or interface if necessary to make the limitations of the game invisible, and as I'm thinking about some of the games I like the most that do this. Making the game feel limitless though true limitlessness is impossible to actually develop--it seems obvious but unless you've thought about it, not something that activly might come to mind when designing.
I did disagree with a point made in the last section on fundamental incompatibility. The example given by the author is of a movie character stopping suddenly in the movie and turning to the audience to ask "What would you do next?" I flashed back to the movie Jay adn Silent Bob Strike Back adn specifically to a scene where the characters suddenly stop and ask rhetorically "Who woudl go see some stupid movie about Jay and Silent Bob?" and turn to look at the audience. It's is one of the most hilarious jokes in the entire movie, and it's using the boundaries of the film medium itself to make a joke. I think that the medium can be the message, to paraphrase MacLuhen again. It part of why Red vs. Blue is funny, why the "Numa numa" viral video of Gary Brolsma dancing on his webcam is hilarious. Perhaps the authors are makign a general point of "Don't jar the player's focus." Which I could agree with, but I want to keep m mind open to using that shift in focus to mean someting, like the afore mentioned examples.