Devlog #3

The levels of the player experience is what can make or break a game. It goes from the sensory layer (what the player sees, hears, and feels), the information layer (the data the player gathers), the interaction layer (what the player can do), the frame layer (the broader interpretation of the experience), to the purpose layer (the goal of the play experience).  The beginnings of a game and the player's interest to it rely on the sensory layer and the information layer, before moving onto the next layers.

"But one of the most important decisions in a videogame’s design is how the player sees the game’s world" (p. 169, Macklin, Sharp). How the player sees the game is what can have them decide to play or not. From point of views to how the game looks, the senses of a human being determine if the game will be worth it to a player. For example, the game called Up The River. The way it looks and how it is formatted would be appealing to children and parents as a simple game that only requires a few objects and a few pieces of paper. The world is just a river, a small area in comparison to the large world. A simple game such as that would appeal to the senses of a child, but for an adult with no kids or has no interaction with children in their day to day lives, it wouldn't appeal to them and they would move on to the next game.

The information layer is crucial. It gives the player data on what the game is about and what they need to do. In the textbook, the text uses the game Journey as an example of explaining different types of attention (reflexive and executive). "The player first sees a character standing on a sandy hill. This is a series of data points—there is a figure in a cape, there is a hill, and it appears to be made of sand. The player can intuit that the character is probably the player character by virtue of the camera angle, the position the camera has onscreen, and other subtle but important cues" (p. 180, Macklin, Sharp).  It's a simple visual; but provides many data points and cues to help the player in who they are in this game. On Tuesday, we replayed the Human Battleship game my group and I made, with the entire class this time. Even with the rules explained, it was hard for the commander to get the data point that the torpedoes come back to the beginning, so he moved them in small steps. What was originally thought to be a problem with how little turns, was actually a problem with the data point being unexplained, meaning that the rules would need to be updated for players to gather that data and cues.

"To really understand the design of a game, you have to consider what that game asks of its players. How does a game draw on a player’s senses? What kind of (and how much) information does the game provide a player?" (p.209, Macklin, Sharp) These are questions that all game designers should ask themselves first before releasing a game to the public. If it is a game about depleting a sense in some way, how would the other senses be amplified for the player? How would the player get this information? Too little information and you are stuck explaining and adding rules mid-game, and too much information makes some players feel trapped and unwilling to play anymore.