My name is Sam. This is my blog for COMP4431.
I am doing the Game Design Workshop because games are something that I have always loved, and designing and playing games has consumed my spare time over the past few years. I have hundreds of ideas scribbled down all throughout my house, but only one simple game to my name. What could be better motivation for actually making one of those ideas than a deadline and an audience.
Why do i like games… Hm… The most realistic reason for my interest in games is their ability to absorb my entirety. It may be as complex as a 5 hour session of Fallout 3, or as simple as 15 minutes of Critter Crunch on the bus ride home. I would love to say that I admire games as an artistic medium because they can convey a message by enabling one to experience it themselves, but far too few games have actually done this. Hopefully this will change as the medium matures.
Why do so many games involve guns?
There are countless answers to this, but arguably the most notable is the ease of making the act of firing a gun an enjoyable one. Simply by adding a flash, a loud bang and a spark of shrapnel or explosion of blood a game designer can make clicking the mouse enjoyable.
I’ll give you an example to better explain what I mean: Wolfenstein 3D was the first largely popular FPS that pretty much was based around moving in to a room, shooting everything until it died and then progressing to the next room. Street Fighter II on the other hand, is a one-on-one melee combat game, featuring a complex combat system. I thoroughly enjoy both games and both were rated highly, but just by playing the games it is easy to tell how much more work went in to Street Fighter II’s combat. For something to compare this to, look at the first Street Fighter. Far more simple melee combat, far less favourable reviews.
Now this certainly isn’t a hard and fast rule of game design, but I believe shooters are easier to make enjoyable than most other genres.
