Level 4 Introduction & Readings

LEVEL 4: MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS

It is time to examine what makes a good rule from a bad one, as well as, discuss the different kinds of rules that form a game designer’s palette. Let us begin to talk about the relationship between the game rules and the player experience. These are the things we examine in Level 4. 

Readings

  • Extra Credits S5 E9 Aesthetics of Play
    Extra Credits presents the MDA Framework.
  • MDA Framework by LeBlanc, Hunicke and Zabek
    This is one of the few academic papers that achieved wide exposure within the game industry (it probably helps that the authors are experienced game designers). There are two parts of this paper that made it really influential. The first is the Mechanics/Dynamics/Aesthetics (MDA) conceptualization, which offers a way to think about the relationship of rules to player experience, and also the relationship between player and designer. The second part to pay attention to is the “8 kinds of fun”.
  • Designing to Promote Intentional Play by Clint Hocking
    This was a lecture given live at GDC in 2006, but Clint has kindly made his Powerpoint slides and speaker notes publicly available for download from his blog. It covers the concept of player intentionality and its relation to emergence, far better than I can cover here. The link goes to a Zip file that contains a number of files inside it; start with the Powerpoint and the companion Word doc, and the presentation will make it clear when the other things like the videos come into play. I will warn you that, like many video game developers, Clint tends to use a lot of profanity; also, the presentation opens with a joke about Jesus and Moses. It may be best to skip this one if you are around people who are easily offended by such thing.

Additional Resources

For additional readings on these topics, click HERE. It is a list of resources that is student generated and regularly updated.