Skip to main content

Games MDA

 

Taking Notes Link

For this week's reading task, we are going to talk about how to analyze the game design and research properly. We were given two articles to read and they are called "MDA: Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research" by Hunicke, R. LeBlanc, M. & Zubek, R. (2004) and "Design, Dynamics & Experience (DDE) for Game Design" by Wolfgang Walk, Daniel Görlich and  Mark Barret. We also have to watch a video explaining about MDA Framework. Link to an external site.

MDA stands for Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics and it helps to clarify and strengthen the iterative processes of developers, researchers making it easier for them to break down, study and design a range of game designs. Design methodologies also guide the creative process and help ensure quality work. as designers always consider assurance before making changes.

"Games are created by designers/teams of developer and consumed by players"

There is also a difference between games and other entertainment products (movies, books, etc.) which is their consumption is relatively unpredictable. 

Mechanics - describes particular factors of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms. Sometimes adjusting the mechanic of the game can help us improve in the overall dynamics. E.g. by changing the rules, the players could be able to enjoy the game better and it could keep their interest for a long period of time.

Dynamics - describes the run-time behavior of mechanics acting on player inputs and outputs over time. It also encourages a rising tension, a release and, completion.

Aesthetics - describes the desirable emotional responses evolved in the player, when she interacts with the game systems.

Here are some of the Taxonomy lists of Aesthetics that helps me understand it better:

  • Sensation - game as pleasure
  • Fantasy - game as make-believe
  • Narrative - game as drama
  • Challenge - game as an obstacle course
  • Discovery - uncharted territory
However, according to the second article, MDA neglects many design aspects as it focuses on game mechanics too much. Because of this, it shows that MDA is not suitable for all types of games. This is where DDE is developed which stands for Design, Dynamic and, Experience. They use it to examine the weakness of MDA.

Blueprint is created by that part of the Design dealing with the game world in concept e.g. cultures, religion and, other rules. Blueprint is also more clearer as it reflects the control of planning throughout the development.

What Dynamics do is it links mechanics and aesthetics together. Dynamics defines what happens when the game starts. The difference between design and dynamic is that the control is indirect because every element the designer can directly affect falls in the category of design.

Comments

  1. Hey Flosie, I like the way to started the blog getting right into what a Game MDA. And providing bits of info on the Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics of games.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to a future Animator 😁

If you've been reading my blog post since the day I started, you have read my first introduction. However, I haven't really talked about myself. So in this post, I will along with questions from the tasks we have given. 😁 My photo from last year First of all my name is Flosie Jane Sazon, I am currently a 2nd-year student studying Creative Digital Media at the  Technological University of Dublin located in Blanchardstown Campus. I'm 20 years old (even though I don't look my age 😂) and I have been living in Ireland since I was 13. This course wasn't actually my first choice even though I love art. My first choice was something about business and language which was way different from what I'm doing now, but I'm really happy that I'm doing what I love. Even though there were a lot of times convincing my parents but everything went well in the end.😂😂 What was the best class you took last semester? why? Even though I enjoyed Web Development and Design Proc...

Game Idea Research

Maze  Inspiration Last week, I started to collect some game ideas and talk about what we like about them. However this week, we have to choose on out of all the game ideas we picked. The game that I decided to do is similar to "Roller Splat!" but in 3D instead because that is the type of game we are learning in Unity. I think that it will be helpful as I can utilize the skills that I learned from the tutorials to my project instead of studying another type of game. I will have more time to develop my game better if I stick to 3D style as well. Choosing this type of game is also a good starter, especially for people who want to make a game for the first time like me. My game will also be played in a first person point of view means that the camera of will be placed at the back following the ball inside the maze. While doing my secondary research, I find countless of game tutorials on YouTube that are related to the idea I am going for. Most of them are also made in Unity which...

Beta

When Unity takes a long time to load Screenshot with the sound effects Hi guys~ For this week's project update, I tried to create my menu scene again but I still have a LOT of problems. At first, I tried to follow the same tutorial from this week's lab work task  and sadly it still did not work even though Shaun advised that I should not use the TextMesh Pro font as we thought it was the one that causes the problem. The tutorial was straightforward, but Unity kept crashing down, and even though I have all of it save during the process, everything that I have done still got deleted. I decided to look for another tutorial for the Main Menu, I found this 5-minute video tutorial . I find it helpful and it is simpler than the first tutorial. Unfortunately, while I'm nearly done making it, Unity crashed again, so I ended up having nothing is done which is very frustrating because I want to make a decent game by the end of this semester and Unity isn't cooperating :(. The only...